Jake W. Ford

3 AM

Listen to the audio version.

It's 3 AM; the Matins.

A clock ticks its vulgar chanting,
deranged and hot.

My thoughts like punches
fast, bruised, throbbing.

Hours felled as trees
at a chainsaws touch.

Teeth grinding, limbs twitching;
then jagged silence.

A fevered scar,
intense as an August sun,
burns my feet.

I dance till dawn.

 

Jake W. Ford is a writer and artist from East Tennessee. His work has appeared in Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment, Unlikely Stories, Grotesque Quarterly, The Southern Quarterly and Kestrel.