Crocodile

by Hannah K

I am the one who swallowed a clock:
it keeps not time but me in queasy captivity.
Put your ear to my scaly chest and listen.
Tick is for panic, frenzy, lizard-like
instincts, yellow bile, choking on split seconds
that run not out but deeper down my throat
to show me how little time is—
tock is all I do to stop this terror:
red-hot anger, glowering, gnashing
bare toothy grin against the ebb and flow
of time, ticking in my very bones,
the sinews of my sleek snout and furrowed tail.
I toss, shivering, ghastly alien eyes—
they don’t look back for pain
or forward for pride: watch them.
Most days I sink low in the steaming mud,
appearing still and ageless, but inwardly
writhing, thrashing—in faith, in clarity
that once again I’ll snap, and swallow eternity.

Hannah K is halfway grown up and enjoys writing fiction, wrangling kids, and generally being alive.

Photography by Kenneth Godoy