For years, I thought not wearing a watch
would protect me from the passage
of time, refused to wear them, stayed
ignorant of passing hours and minutes.
After all, we have cell phones if we really need
to know. The sun rises when I wake to pee.
It sets at dinner time, depending on the season.
Sleep happens, never according to schedule.
It’s not my own life I fear rusting away in bits:
It’s the tarnish in my dad’s hair, the scars
from heart surgery on my mother’s body,
my younger sister’s wrinkles, and mid-life grays.
It’s the dog going blind. My husband’s painful
arthritis. And, the certain knowing, that one of us
will leave before the other. Banish that thought:
along with watches, things that tock, and balls dropping
as we count down final seconds to the New Year.
It’s the fervent wish to outlaw every clock. To melt
all time-keepers in the desert as in Dali’s landscape.
To bend time to our liking, forgo the relative end
of our ticking.
Blaise Allen, Ph.D. lives in South Florida and is the Director of Community Outreach for the Palm Beach Poetry Festival.
