Melissa Sussens
Spell for Time
First, give me three handfuls of hourglass
sand, dust running in reverse.
Give me the echo of lost friends’ footsteps
going backwards, the screech
of six cuckoos marking the hour.
Give me two tockings of a wrist watch
with its batteries run down to empty,
an infinity of 6pms. Add two blank pages
from my high school diary and throw
all of this into the leaking hands free spinning
on my wall. Stir in a minute long pillow scream
and the sound of my fingers rattling
the computer keys into another history.
Grind and twist it all together.
Let it race twice around the clock
and then stop.
Rest it for a fortnight
in a dark and damp corner, next to the chronicle
of unwashed dishes. Remember
to set a timer and then toss it in,
still ringing. Spill two lifetimes of this elixir
directly down my throat and watch
my days lengthen. Watch my shoulders loosen.
Watch me find my words again,
speak poems out of silence.
Watch as I stretch into
the space of hours unmarked
by my checklisted plans.
I pause to smell the sunset.
Stop to admire the bread rising.
Suddenly, a moment is widened
by my presence, my mind uncluttered
of its lists, of all the other
places I should be. On the beach walk
I meditate on each grain against my toes.
See how my toffee ice cream does not melt
to puddle around my knuckles.
Instead, it lives a decade on my tongue.
Watch as I write the book;
its pages are the after of a lifetime
present. Each moment is enough.
sand, dust running in reverse.
Give me the echo of lost friends’ footsteps
going backwards, the screech
of six cuckoos marking the hour.
Give me two tockings of a wrist watch
with its batteries run down to empty,
an infinity of 6pms. Add two blank pages
from my high school diary and throw
all of this into the leaking hands free spinning
on my wall. Stir in a minute long pillow scream
and the sound of my fingers rattling
the computer keys into another history.
Grind and twist it all together.
Let it race twice around the clock
and then stop.
Rest it for a fortnight
in a dark and damp corner, next to the chronicle
of unwashed dishes. Remember
to set a timer and then toss it in,
still ringing. Spill two lifetimes of this elixir
directly down my throat and watch
my days lengthen. Watch my shoulders loosen.
Watch me find my words again,
speak poems out of silence.
Watch as I stretch into
the space of hours unmarked
by my checklisted plans.
I pause to smell the sunset.
Stop to admire the bread rising.
Suddenly, a moment is widened
by my presence, my mind uncluttered
of its lists, of all the other
places I should be. On the beach walk
I meditate on each grain against my toes.
See how my toffee ice cream does not melt
to puddle around my knuckles.
Instead, it lives a decade on my tongue.
Watch as I write the book;
its pages are the after of a lifetime
present. Each moment is enough.
Biography
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Melissa Sussens (she/her) is a queer South African veterinarian and poet. Her work has appeared in Capsule Stories, Horse Egg Literary, Anti-Heroin Chic, SFWP Quarterly and Gnashing Teeth Publishing, among others. She has performed at the Poetry In McGregor festival and at Off The Wall and placed 2nd in the New Contrast National Poetry Prize. By day she works as a small animal veterinarian and whenever she’s not doctoring animals, she assists in teaching Megan Falley’s Poems That Don’t Suck international online writing course. Melissa lives in Cape Town with her partner and their two dogs. Find her on Instagram @melissasussens and on Twitter @girlstillwrites.
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