Here's a poem about a thing that I, as a grad student, have been forced to be obsessed with:
I wind clocks at the invitation of women.
Clocks wind down white rooms, dark shoes.
I have been befriended by clocks,
I have been chased by clocks.
Follow me everywhere. My joints
rust and my hair frosts.
Clocks cloaked leave traces, tracks.
Clocks blossom and melt with rust.
I wake mornings to my ragged passage
through scars, bells, my wife’s face.
Clocks open and close books,
track chemistry across the sky,
footprints, the exhale of decision.
Brass feet, plastic feet leave tracks
on bedside tables, desks, sideboards.
Track traces of breaking fights, olive
stained parties.
Clock maintenance is a bitter vocation.
I have failed women in their rooms.
Clocks are neither kind nor relentless.
They fail. Remove their limbs
and they will never be right again,
even twice a day.
Arms chart a future vortex,
but can be sucked into a tornado,
spun flat backward, needles flung deep.
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