the clock
Kathleen Hellen
the navals smirked in pitless quarters. her mother said
eat the orange so you don’t get scurvy (like she did in the war). her
father who was always locking doors was never sure the deadened bolt
would keep out the machetes.
——–he checked the knobs that whispered on the stove. the disembodied
noises. when lights went out announcing darkness, the big clock in the hallway kept
insisting, tick-tick-ticking all night long.
Kathleen Hellen is the author of three poetry collections, including Meet Me at the Bottom, The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin, and Umberto’s Night, which won the poetry prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and two chapbooks. She is the recipient of the James Still Award, the Thomas Merton prize for Poetry of the Sacred, and prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review.
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