You rooted your life
in magic numbers and rabbit’s feet
instead of something concrete
like your mother’s religion
now your perception is fading
so you set the clocks to military time,
try for one more hour of catching angels:
charge your stones, the moon is full
but veiled in vapour
pull the stars closer to your lips
speak good fortune into existence
via silver tongue and crystal ball emojis
swallow your furies with the tablet
salvage your relationship with the gods
find new ones, learn better
the cadence of weeping.
A rush of 0’s sweep across
your face eclipsed in dim glow,
the clock is beginning again
burning triple 2’s and 3’s into digital dreams
soon enough the sun will peek
a quiet head over the mountains.
Justin Timbol is a Filipino writer from Mississauga ON. His work has been longlisted for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize and shortlisted for CV2’s Foster Poetry Prize. His poems appeared most recently in Ricepaper Magazine and The Maynard among others, and is forthcoming in Contemporary Verse 2. He has recently graduated from the Humber School for Writers.
