Hasty

The Hasty Clock

In the early, blush‑gold hour of the train station,
a figure darts, a wheeze through the queue,
her perfume a rogue bloom in a corridor full of clipboard‑tucked commuters.
She hurries, the inevitable sort of frantic,
predicated on her own rush‑pulse, determined to catch the 10.43.

Her steps collide with the taxi door, a clenched‑hand abandon,
her coffee, an unguarded lump, splashes a splash of crimson ink—
no time to organise, no time to gasp;
time, the heel of a clock face, ticks at a cadence she refuses to obey.

She does not pause to realise the beauty of a silver cloche,
does not linger on the way her shawl unfurls in the breeze of the station.
Every footstep a decisive beat in a disciplinarian drum,
every breath a pre‑approved note pulled from a well‑filled script.

‘Hasty’, they whisper as she passes,
and half a smile wavers from the barista’s weary eyes;
the world record for speed does not yet know her name,
but the inner track is already marked with her indelible footprints.