Countdown

After midnight, the tired astronaut
surveys her chrometop kitchentop
and counts the hours down
till the alarm-clock rings.
Thinks of yesterday's shopping trip
the kids outgrowing their shoes again
and such unfinished things.
Daytime, and her mother-ship
shuttles its small satellites
from playschool to violin class,
the swimming pool, art lessons, ballet,
and feeds them at irregular intervals
in a twenty-four-hour tour of duty.

The washing machine groans. Pipes swish,
the dryer roars. She wishes
she were in a vacuum,
not vacuuming or doing dishes.

She longs
to be in the dark, and young,
with star-fields leaping light-years
beyond time's gravity. And peers
out of the window at the night,
and counts down hours till the end,
craning her neck, till all the clocks break free.

By Grace Chua

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