Sand flows through my cinched waist
for three minutes. Then rest.
I labour at someone else’s whim.
He flips me, sand runs again.
Three minutes. Flip. Three more.
I am useful in bursts; three minutes,
consistent. It is my job to count it.
It is his job to watch,
to notice when mine is done.
First published in The High Window Issue 5, Spring 2017
Published by W N Herbert
Poet and pseudo-scholar W.N. Herbert was born in Dundee in 1961, educated there and at Oxford, where he completed his DPhil thesis on Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid, and now lives and works in Newcastle. He is Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and his books are published by, among others, northern publisher Bloodaxe Books. He is also the Dundee Makar, or city laureate.
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