I woke before the sun
rose, before coffee brewed,
loud sputters and staccatos
startling a lazy stillness.
I felt stuck in time,
unable to process the
residue of stardust and
a jarring night's sleep.
Time moved slowly, then too fast,
causing an internal loss of balance.
Or perhaps, it was I moving slowly,
blaming infinite atoms for what I
failed to comprehend.
Waves of people rushed past,
shimmering, out of focus.
I tried to align myself with reality,
with the steady hand of time
but I couldn't.
Then, I met a stranger
who sold me four vintage
clocks, passing them into
my hands with barely a glance.
The clocks gaze at me from the
closet, and I wonder what's
stirring within their mechanics.
Are they full, or empty, of time?
Tonight, I'll prop open a
Phinney Walker,
wondering if you're there -
a moment in time,
a luminous star in space,
exhausting fuel and energy,
taking an evolutionary path
