CLOCKS

    by Leslie Clark

A central character in a family childhood game,
the luminous face of a clacking alarm clock,
plastic-cased, dark-dialed with numerals 
and creeping hands that reflected leftover light.
Part of the membership ritual for T in the D,
Tappers in the Dark club.
Rules concocted by me, the oldest,
in first flexings of imagination.
The littler ones had to lie under the bed
in complete, curtained darkness
with that clacking clock,
eyes fixed on the eerie green numbers
until the hands crept five spaces.
They emerged, ashen-faced
Eyes enormous with the possibilities
of time emptied into dark.

Six decades gone,
a country-span away
I watch the hands of a golden clock
proceed in their slow pacing of the time.
Is it an accomplishment, I wonder
to be here still
hearing more clock ticks than
my first love,
my parents,
my chuckling uncles,
my baby brother.

The clock hands sing 
opportunities of time.
I can still create, love, 
do some small good,
or squander.