hands of clocks
currently extant
on the Earth
hurling forward, as if
forced, with that sickening
sound
all at once,
while you stand without
shoes on,
in the middle of a
small park
that used to be
a parking lot,
and before that, perhaps,
a hunting ground,
a meeting place, a
burial mound—
and try to say
with a straight face
or dry eyes
that nothing
of significance
has ever happened to you;
that the present won't pollute
our perception
of the past;
that any
love lost
isn't changed
by its absence,
doesn't come
back around—but
unrecognized.
