sand.

When I asked her about time, she said it’s just an hourglass.

A grain of sand for every day, promptly flipped when you were born, now standing somewhere to be found –

in cupboards at your mother’s house in fields of grass, in rays of sun in lavender –

and when I said that sounded dumb she showed me mine.

With her thumbprints on the dusty glass, she only asked:

“Will you clean them so you see inside or build me castles at the beach?”