
Emily O’Neill’s Work
timecard won’t match
watch face or hands so
we are constantly
re-setting
here: capital letters / serif / bold
In the city, money shouts at me
to get off the lawn of the Public Gardens
so I don’t ruin expensive grass for the tourists.
Newbury Street is leaking & the swans know (& I know)
I’m as alien as their impossible necks.
paycheck won’t catch
& hold to me like sweat so
I sweat until my clothes are sick
of me / I can’t tell when to run
or when to be an iron rail
shrieking
here: the trains are only as angry
as I pretend I’m not
yolk spills down my callused fingers
& poppyseeds stick in my crooked teeth & I, middle
child, am the ugly wad of gum dogging a leather sole
stay stay stay / there’s endless evidence proving
I’m common so I say I am common
& it’s the only way to charm
a larger tip into the jar
timeloss is a word they use
for man dragged into machine
& spat out as a fifty-foot smear / my father
told me casualty is often called incident
& we’ll never be the ones to decide
which headstone grounds us