False Start

The timer hit the floor last Tuesday

and forgot how to die. Now it shivers

on the yellow laminate, a nervous heart

with a plastic fracture across its face.

I won't turn on the radio to drown it out.

I’ll just let the silence get eaten by this

cheap, mechanical cough. It thinks it’s

counting down to a grand reveal,

but it’s just stuck in the wreckage

of a zero. A small, rhythmic panic

vibrating against the counter while

I wait for the kettle to scream.