time seeping through your fingers,
through the leak in your ceiling,

and you don’t feel the years pooling on your tiles
until you’ve disturbed its glassy skin,
seen its bloodshot eyes peering back at you
between your second and third toe.

a shrill timer pierces the spell-
     your daughter is visiting you soon

you startle to fetch a mop
and try not to slip in your kitchen-
      you skid anyway,
fall smack bang on your back.

iciness spreads across your skin,
your fingers ghost the slickness of your phone
the timer taunts you, millimetres out of reach
your shirt clings wetly to your gut
        you recall faintly
                (failing to coax movement from your toes),
        that spinal injuries are dangerous.

(you wanted once,
once you were twenty-six,
to swim with turtles off the coast of new caledonia)

a drop shatters on your forehead
spills its contents, wetly, clumsily

für elise rings out from the hallway
your daughter is here

you pinch your thighs and still find no feeling
right now, you are incapable of speech and your daughter is impatient
when that drop rolls into your left eye,
and für elise has become an endless stream of e and its flats,
you are reminded of the impermanence of your flesh.