A pale face, with blue lipstick,
on came out of the shadow of an archway,
asked if I wanted to go short time with her.
Her brash question made me think of time
this massive abstract invention so crushing
that we need to divide it up into years, hours and minutes,
if not we would disappear into a big void
that has neither beginning nor an ending.
Long time,
difficult time,
war and peacetime
how could we know the difference
if we didn’t name these times with a prefix?
When I was ready to answer: no thanks;
she had slinked into the night biding her time.