Stuck in an Hourglass
A poem about fitting in where you don’t
Published in
Feb 25, 2021
Put me in a room half a floor up
from sparkling socialites flirting
for a tip, and paying it forward
like a golden ticket.
Give! Give!
Until all those six-inch slips
- and more to stick in the artisan’s mouth -
Condense to sickly antlers
on the 16th floor.
You’ve made me rock a wooden sliding door.
And waltz through sitting cocktail attire
and unbuttoned business collars,
as the bodies underneath
stoop to sniff
where my sheath opens up
Around my knees.
My knees want stick
and needle-covered earth,
and shoulders to smother them,
while I pray.
Instead they hang
Where drunk men stumbling
can use them as an opening.
~Poem by Chloe Paulina Hawes
