The Chain Game
You play the chain game! But will it protect you against rust?
The indicators on the side indicate your time is crunching into
a vile twist, so no. Little else is going on where the axle meets
the gentle slope of her neck. Still the water runs off its back,
every day meaning rust is perpetual. There, did you see it slip?
Feed it through the mechanism. There, it slipped again. Fixation
is the special game of attention and I’m losing it badly. Still,
still. That’s the white spirit coming out again, stinking up the
garden. Other neighbours poke their nobbly heads over low
walls, squatting to look down on me. All that I can do (there’s
another slip) is to wave coyly at the panoramic gaze. If a few heads
can solve a problem like the stench of chemical, threat to the first
and only day of Summer (eh?) then the collective ought to make the
chain work. Still, it leaks flakes rubbing against the cog. My hands
have stains because (who knew) but it’s wet metal. Finding it hard to
concentrate and there, I slipped again. My audience are whispering
between themselves. Where I laughed up confidence, the false butterfly
caught in my throat. They were snooty, now they’re Eidolons of Judgement
and that was the fatal slip. They cackle waves of physical shock on the
lone boy and the bicycle. The amber links tore my palm across,
and I flashed a thought (brazenly) of The Baptism. That was wrong,
the true fact of the situation was a death trap coated in blood.
I scrabble backward on my knees and lock her out there.
Richard James is an unpublished poet from near Colchester, currently not working in a literary occupation. He has been reading poetry since college, and has been writing poetry for five years. He enjoys experimenting with as wide a variety of forms as possible.