Watch Hour, by Charlotte Hughes

The Persistence of Memory, by Salvador Dali (Spain) 1931.

Watch Hour

Dear / me dear / old me dear / Iowa hospital room / I left a / 
piece of myself still / attached / to the plastic IV / bag /
sucking salt sodium chloride / up my veins / As I rambled /
through the halls imagining my / cot ride not as chore or /
weakness but / langor / The perks of paying top dollar 500 / a
night / for my very own room with a TV and graham /
crackers / Whatʻs funny is how experiences put things into /
perspective / Itʻs not funny just / morbid / So ergo an hour /
before the ER / visit there was a / class discussion I wasnʻt /
paying / attention to instead wondering what / the / painting /
that people make phone case notebooks of / was / the one
 with / a watch melting like butter over a / bedside table
and / its twin / hanging over a branch / laundry set out to dry / 
and / then I was cold / not poetic / but I said that my / bones /
were dry / ice and coursing through / them the veins was liquid
nitrogen / I didnʻt know / two hours later I would be    pancaked /
across a cotton / cot like the watch in Daliʻs painting / The
Persistence of Me / except this time this   watchʻs time was /
ticking as the / EMTs measured the coughs   rasps / of beats and
stuck / electrodes on the melting / butter / pale skin of my
abdomen / silver IVs up my forearm / minute hands / I promise /
I promised my dad on / the phone / en route to the Iowa hospital
that I was / OK / fine / great / good but / you donʻt know you
were near death until youʻre not /  Watches hang from trees like
/ fruit / until / theyʻre on your father's wrist /

Charlotte Hughes

Charlotte Hughes is a high school junior in Columbia, South Carolina. She has attended the Iowa Young Writerʻs Studio, is an editor for Polyphony Lit and The Haloscope Review, and is the editor-in-chief of The Palette. You can find her poems in The Louisville Review and Duck Lake Journal.