In a motel kitchenette, Time and Space chop
grass and cold butter for an ambitious recipe. Time cuts
her finger and instead of blood, what comes out
 
is music. It’s music. Time and Space memorize the melody
because they like how it falls apart. This is because
they’re immersed in the prevailing zeitgeist.
 
When the melody is played on a fixed loop,
its disintegration becomes tangible. The composer
listens to her creation for the first time on the balcony.
 
These bitches will stop at nothing for something ambiguous.
The composition deteriorates as the towers do too.
Space chews on a blade then flips past the news.
 
Time wonders if anyone has drawn her when she wasn’t
aware, on some city platform, waiting for a train.
These bitches, my stars, they’re softer than ever.

EMMA RUTH WILSON hosts a podcast called Poetry Hello (@PoetryHello on Twitter). Her poems have appeared in, or are forthcoming on Poets.org, PANK, CHEAP POP, Berkeley Poetry Review, and others. She lives in the Midwest.

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