Her eyes keep the carcass of her beauty. Philosophically, a soul is more charming. Practically, people don’t prefer to it. It’s modern to say, “No dowry." Yet, a wedlock without a gold-lock is rare here. Poverty padlocks her dreams. Midlife sun burns. Hope level falls. Her snakehead fish sinks into the black mud. Petrified by the dark beard of moral fascism, her eloping thoughts retreat. She buries her biological needs in her womb. First published in The Literary Hatchet.