When the clock strikes noon you
sucked on your braid's ends when you weren't
ripping out strays like carrot greens

So the job comes naturally to you,
brushing the Undark onto the clockface
onto your fingernails when no one saw

While a voice yells to taper those tips
a thousand more faces left before three chimes
horsehair in your mouth, tastes like you do

Often with your own shiny black hair
that slowly turns blistering gray,
fingernails thinning and teeth aching

At six-o-clock the ghost of Curie whispers
with anemic lips in your ear that this
is a woman's legacy, not the doctor you need

But then neither is the one who says sluts
who leave work at 9 drink in hand don't have
the brittle problems you bring to his office

You want to call him things back but you
can't figure out how to move the empty
space where your jaw used to be

And the future called you radium girls,
like you were some kind of superheroes
fighting against the approaching midnight