watching the
watch to
nowhere. ticking coffeepot, I am the
aisle, and the baggage claim around which I
built a Candy Land board: impatiently Tapping the
aquarium glass with my pencil, for the
test, I’m failing in my head, though the
teacher looks like someone
I know in a book. The schedule, the
late, watching for the
stopwatch. The stop sign, that leans, the lean, that
cranes and finds. The find that unveils, and
veils, glistening gold, velvet drapes across an
altar of wooden, rotten deck plank wood
extending into the ocean as it’s
slowly removed, a slat a
day. Somehow, nobody
seems to notice the meter. Still, gathers round the
cartoon police department to
mourn and hang their sorry, leaning
caps on a branch at the
bus stop. A single leaf, at the bus
stop of
stained glass windows and chained link fence that becomes a
desert oasis:
never quite reached, always
late by exactly four
minutes. Flickers on, the
streetside television set. Flickers
out, the light. When the
lamppost reappears, scratching against
the darkness, it’s
taller and is
wearing a hat atop which delicately
balances an
antique plate behind a
glass door, a museum mirror