Pistachios
The day the clocks move forward
she considers which hour she would like to lose,
the hour chased through pantry,
dining room, den with a knife in her pants
to hurt father's giant hand
when he spanks her for eating the pistachios.
Which hour out of more than twenty-four?
Hour in the Sylvie tree,
Father at his pen factory,
brother at Scouts, wind
troubling leaves in the yard.
Hour in the blue room's corner
Father whispers a thing to Mother,
back to the hospital,
I knew it, the girl shrieks (triumphant
to know a secret)—
it is then he turn on her his iron wings
yanks their secret from the room,
when her own curls are grey,
he mother's curls will still be black,
and it will still be spring.
.
by Jane Benjulian
from Five Sextillion Atoms
Saddle Road Press, Hilo Hawaii, 2016
.