Fugge il Tempo
I keep a clock that won’t keep time.
It has crocheted together beats and rests
For years, with a signature all its own.
Neither of us will openly discuss
Our difference of opinion
Over five minutes of each day.
But, in time, such small things take their toll.
After the better part of a week, its adagio
Chimes tell of a half hour since past and—
In my interrupted present—
I rise to advance the hand through
The unregistered moments of our days
Into some still future tense.
It won’t be right for either of us
Until the next tomorrow—
And then only for an instant—
Though never so altogether wrong
As if I hadn’t set it at all.
But as soon as I turn away, relentlessly
It resumes its slower cadence.
I might risk taking it from the wall
And shortening the pendulum,
But what if it chose to stop again?
So I leave it as it is. I don’t rely on it,
And it does not rely on me
But we live together still,
Slightly out of time,
Metronomes to the passings
Of other times that might have been.
• • •
A Seattle native, Gary Mesick is a graduate of West Point and Harvard. He spent some time as an Infantry officer, and he now works in aerospace analytics, where he leads a data management organization. He has accumulated several watches and clocks, none of which are synchronized. His recent collection of poems is General Discharge (Fomite Press).