Father Time

Father Time
by Sarah Endsley
Ants on the phone
Mouse in a glue trap
A burnt lampshade
Small hairline scar
Broken heart tissue
Resuscitated again
Daddy please don’t
This time
I want to leave
The mouse, writhing in the glue
For hours and hours, for days
The mouse
It’s you
And he won’t kill it
And he won’t watch it die.
The phone full of ants…
Borrowing names of famous people
But you’ll never feel important
In the burnt lampshade hotel
On the phone with a scarred heart
That he won’t watch die
As he speaks to your head
Heals your undying organ
And you wonder, when is the end?
On the ant-phone
You won’t see the mouse again
And you’ll be here still
In a trap
As your heart beats itself
And the phone rings.