by Courtney Hitson

THE CLOCKS INSIDE ME

One affixed to the wall and going since breakfast,
another hung upstairs in autumn, a giant one
ticking since I was born. And so many
others. As if I’m living under
a mobile of metronomes.

What comes of an overthinking
greyhound, overcome by the mechanical
hares? A Cerberus, maybe, each of her
heads dizzying with a rabbit’s spin,
all of her entangled in their paths,
inextricable.

My husband says there’s no such thing
as time and it’s merely the name
of an actor: entropy, or molecules’
tendency to tucker themselves out
of order, of energy, of hutzpah.

As in, the puddles of metal those rabbits
will eventually melt to, the greyhound’s
ashes spread, and the racetrack disassembled
to pieces. The woman with her clocks, eventually,
inseparable from dirt.

It’s a game, really. The earth
always trying to make a mess of you.
Your life, a gasping denial and each day
another defeat worth braving.

COURTNEY HITSON teaches English at the College of the Florida Keys. She currently has work forthcoming in Kestrel Review, Qu, and Sequestrum. In 2024, her poetry received three Pushcart nominations. Outside of writing, she enjoys scuba-diving, freestyle unicycling, and philosophy. Courtney and her husband, Tom (also a poet), reside in Key West, Florida with their two cats.