My Aunty Jean
was no mean hortihorologist.
For my fifteenth birthday
she gave me a floral wristwatch.
Wormproof and self-weeding,
its tick was as soft
as a butterfly on tiptoe.
All summer long
I sniffed happily the passing hours.
Until late September
when, forgetting to take it off
before bathing at New Brighton,
the tide washed time away.