Tick tock silver watch
A glinting, precious jewel,
Circumnavigates the wrist so tightly,
Coldly compressing veins
Until the knuckles shine bright whitely,
Looks nice enough to put on in the AM
And to take off again each nightly.
The convex mirage of an oasis
Hovers in sweat drops
That cling to the coarse grain of his skin,
Beneath a white collar, sky blue shirt lies
A prehistoric land,
Borehole pores punctured by hairs,
The first weeds of the season
Breaking through the sand,
Thatching the primal roofs of swollen, brutish hands.
Branches that grasp so tightly at the rucksack in his lap,
As though it were new born
As though it might hatch,
Spread its mighty wings and flap.
No sir, those fingers are clamped shut,
Twisted tighter than an oyster’s kiss
Around a goretex pearl.
Eyes stare up and down,
Left and right,
Boy and girl,
Swung by vibrations, spinning like pennies,
Slowing down gently and then stopping dead
Staring straight ahead,
Midnight blue, cold and dry,
Skewering my head.
And the eyes might’ve stopped but his jowls do not,
Dragged down as they are like Salvador’s clocks.
Two dangling peninsulas pockmarked by eddies of shade,
Hanging like keys in a pocket or bats in a cave.