89

whatever happens now (let’s pray that it will
all be, though it is not likely to be, good)

I guess in my 71st year I’ve had my turn: turn
as in going from something fresh and new to

something old and fresh, no, I mean, old and
stale: or it could be called a turn through

time, a hand sweeping the arc from dawn to
noon to dusk: this familiar poeticism sounds

okay, but wouldn’t it be funny if you could
glance up at the sky and see where the hand of

your time was: the sweep for some would be on
a grander scale than for others, which implies

that each of us has his own sky really, some
little bubbles, some crashed hands hanging there

stupidly in the dome, the arc, hardly begun,
incomplete: whereas, some old fogies

dwell with the setting sun and dance in the
dusk like bouncing bubbles, not staying down

and not popping, either: this thing could be
a trope, too, this turn, a spiritual thing,

a thingless thing, a giddy or terrified rise,
even in some cases a comfortable and longed-for

coming down: the young look up and see so much
time they forget the moving hand and only much

(two much’s) later are shocked to see the hand
leaning weightily west: alas, was that

lost time, then: what time is unnoted time:
well, so, like, we found these nestled nuts

in a closet corner, and, like, well, Phyllis
said, we have a mouse: so we did because

there he was the next morning in the trap I set
but so then we were watching Seinfeld when

abruptly another mouse, like, darted across
the floor, out upon the floor actually and

back, so, well, like, I set the trap again,
but can you believe after two nights it

remains unsprung: I suppose the mouse smelled
death and ran out the way he came, like, gee,

well, it is dangerous; like, he smelled death
and departed: I want to bubble on the brink

provided the spritz isn’t pain:

O HANDS OF TIME

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