For Jennifer
Published: September 12, 2008Section: Arts, Etc.
For Jennifer
Time sleeps in a test tube,
coils silently under the
noses of the sleep-deprived and weightless.
Sophocles heard it skirting the
boundaries of his doorways,
closed his eyes, prayed for sight,
and clicked his heels three times.
Time holds a lot of rain,
like a long-distance telephone call.
Take care not to pick up, but the
ring will find a way to
poke its narrow beak through the
crack of your window.
Time took you when you were
young and left a single pubic hair
as a reminder, a reality which wakes you up
every morning in the form of a colorless
television set in the bathroom.
Time digs a hole into the skull,
scooping out soft sweet
brain-tissue on the way to the
hollow cavern of heartstrings.
Time stops at the frontiers of your fingertips.