Which Is the Hour?
I checked them all
The story of this poem: I feel conflicted when I read women writing online about how perilous it is to walk alone after dark. I have a body that looks like a woman’s to the casual observer, and I can’t square the horrors of the internet with my lived experience that walking in the dark is mostly boring and pretty chill.
WHICH IS THE HOUR? Internet babes cry out, fearful, Caution me not to walk alone at dark. I need specifics: Do they mean after my bar shifts, When everyone minded their business, Allowed my peace? When I walked to my bagel-bakery gig In the black-navy predawn, When the only folks awake Were delivery drivers finishing shifts at the pizza place? Maybe they mean the winter months when it gets dark before five? Sauntered home from barista work with croissant in hand. Only challenge I encountered between work and home: Fucking frigid wind. I hate to cramp the narrative, but It’s not night that brings snatching hands: It’s the swamp of family, Ache of spurned love, Friendship unwisely kept. Which is the hour I’m meant to fear? I’ve explored each with my feet, None have harmed me. So is it that I’m raised, untouchable? Is it that I’m not a woman? Or is terror compelling how rare gems draw eyes Because they veer from regular life?
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