The clock is my enemy I’m always

late I never get anywhere on

time I wish I could be

punctual but somehow I’m always running

late

there are endless jokes about

this from people in my

life, and nicknames of

course, “Speedy” and “Johnny Come Lately” and

“You’ll-be-late-for-your-own-funeral.”

* * *

I should probably have been born in a different

time, when people weren’t such slaves to

clocks, when there was more time for everyone, gobs of it,

great oceans of it available to do with as you choose.

I’m sure I would have liked that, a time when

you could take an afternoon and just throw it up in the air like a big soap bubble,

and watch it bounce along on the breeze.

Or, you could sit beside the stream of Time and just stick your finger in

and watch the patterns it makes, the endless whorls and spreading circles,

the way the seconds sparkle on the surface, and you can’t catch even one of them

no matter how hard you try.

* * *

But no, there’s no time for that I’m

running behind again I’m

gonna miss that train pulling out of the

station the clock is ticking I’m

running down the platform don’t leave without me I’m coming I’m

halfway there

oh, dammit I missed it.

Maybe in another universe I made it;

in this one, oh well,

I’ve got Time to kill.