The years do anyhow.
The minutes used not to. Think
of all those clocks in school rooms
of all those clocks in hospital halls:
big round white faces wiped the seconds,
large numbers spaced with five pk nails
and the long wider black hand
that would tick backwards for a second
before leaping ahead the full minute.
Well these are gone, or not many left,
not even on the body. “I use my cell phone.”
“I use my phone.” “Phone,”
everyone says, pulling them out of purses
and pockets rather than flicking their wrists,
that gesture I love. Gestures, that is:
the back of the hand or
palm up, heart pulsing against the case.
So a minute slips by now like the mouse
And the years, they glide like tigers
through tall grasses of Africa,
not one blade whispers to another.
Lemon Poetry Reed Diffuser by Diane Kendig
Diane Kendig‘s latest books of poetry are Woman with a Fan and Prison Terms, and the tribute anthology, In the Company of Russell Atkins. She lives with her husband and two Scottish terriers in the house her father built himself when he returned from WWII.
