Countdown by Grace Chua

After midnight, the tired astronaut
surveys her chrometop kitchentop
and counts the hours down
till the alarm-clock rings.
Thinks of yesterday's shopping trip
the kids outgrowing their shoes again
and such unfinished things.
Daytime, and her mother-ship
shuttles its small satellites
from playschool to violin class,
the swimming pool, art lessons, ballet,
and feeds them at irregular intervals
in a twenty-four-hour tour of duty.

The washing machine groans. Pipes swish,
the dryer roars. She wishes
she were in a vacuum,
not vacuuming or doing dishes.

She longs
to be in the dark, and young,
with star-fields leaping light-years
beyond time's gravity. And peers
out of the window at the night,
and counts down hours till the end,
craning her neck, till all the clocks break free.