the good brothers

BY SARAH FENG, 11

The clock is as sharp as blood, its minute hand peeling like a brittle peso from my throat.

Dalí should be here, I said, but nobody was there any longer to listen. I tried to unstitch myself from the hours, but instead they yawned. Thrashing wild in the bleached bone of your repentance. All the good brothers know that this is how it works.

The only thing that will make me soft, I said. Gaudí’s trencadis above us starting to shake. I couldn’t move without lead minutes slicing into my stomach.

You spilled out of me like oil and tanqueray. The good brothers crouched under butter-yellow eaves & struck matches against the hooks in their mouths.

2018 FOYLE COMMENDED YOUNG POET OF THE YEAR SCHOLASTIC ART & WRITING SILVER KEY