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Photo by Josh Nuttall on Unsplash

the oak grandfather clock is heavy, thick, and burdensome. and beautiful. i wear it like a necklace, i keep it steady like a ground floor. i dance with it, light on my feet, just to tease my God. around my throat are the hands of a time-teller, silver tick-tocks that squeeze against the pulse of my artery to remind me. was this time made from blood? does the wood craft my tongue?

i keep the keeping of time. time is liminally exposed to the earth more than i am energetically attuned to the body. and the beat of the clock, the thready hum of seconds against my chest — anaemic, could be better, we all know it. the blood battery like oil, polishing an antique, a capsule of ancestry left to me.

it was left to me.

i repeat it like a curse. i inherited this time-keeper. i am a maid to saturn.

so i nurture what is heavy and inescapable. and like this, my body becomes neither a flirtation nor a casual object to be regarded. like this, my body becomes a grandfather clock, hands around my own neck.