Hours. This place
stays open
for twenty-four hours.

I’m sitting in a café,
with an apple crumble
with a sea of custard.
The sea becomes, well,
a sea.
And the crumble,
you might ask?
A ship? Don’t
be foolish.
Don’t play with your food
mother said.

People. In this place.
At this moment
twenty-four people.

The ocean dried up
patterns in the custard.
I stand up,
go out.

Steps. From here to the station
I count twenty-four steps.
Across the road, down
the stairs.

Minutes. The pause outside
has lasted twenty-four minutes.

And suddenly, I realise:
twenty-four is just
a confused
forty-two.

Published in The Scribe: Summer 2010 ‘the Other’