As a child I saw it: time
going arrhythmic—A big
sister was holding
a little sister’s hand, they were
maybe six and three, the older
one’s eyes were searching
for their mother, that is all it could be, that look,
where is our mother?
which is also, at that age, to say,
where
is the rope tethering me
to time, to the spaceship
of my life?
the panic was a train,
she didn’t notice
her heart misplacing the pace
it had spent six years
developing, her steps
quickening, sharpening, she remade time, left
behind what she didn’t hold of her little
sister, legs one, then
two seconds slow, then not there
at all, dragging on the pavement, going
red all down the knees like shooting stars.
