Smile

They wear suffrage colors
signifying sisterhood.
These women smile timorously,
scarcely human in their everyday shrouds,
arms pressed to their breasts as armour.
The space between them is alien ground.
Measured and modulated to the exact size
of their mistrust.
They have made a borderline of a warring hilltop.
Alarmed by their necessary truce
The seed of the great project is sown in such barren soil.