Stop the Clock

Stop the Clock

Benevolent Time sat cross-legged on the mantle smiling,
saying she’d push it over, her index finger often faking
flicking it, when, to my surprise, this Time she did, a warmest look, punctuated
by the sound of shattering glass as my clock fell to the floor and crashed,
Time finally fracturing my need to tell her, see the seconds ticking,
her pointer finger, blocking my journey over that ghosting
map of hours. I’d finally found the oracle to unknot me,
bound hostage by the question of when maybe
I’d come across that place my own index finger
has often lingered over, tracing out the border
of that undiscovered country I’ve heard will not be
barren and brown, battered by a white sun brutally,
but the time of return to that green world once again,
no longer wandering in my wanting to know when.