When I was a child we had a clock,

not elaborate,  with a maid and man,

vanishing and reappearing,  on cue,

like Irene Dunne and Cary Grant.

 

Was not Orson Wells slain by the clock,

the very one he had rumbled to life,

where angels with swords were the

deus ex machina of the Nazi mechanic?

 

There is a film about the clock,

with film clips for every second.

Murders, kisses, births, and, yes,

deaths all to the second hand.

 

I know now what my childish

mind could not conceive. 

When the figures, simple and good,

 enter the dark, they do not return.

 

The friend turns away and leaves

wobbling  on a track that

we all must ride in other people's

ticking clocks on other walls.