keeping time

days stare at you
from the calendar.
you look at your watch
and it gazes back
time wants to know your plans.
wait for it, you say.
through sunrises, sunsets,
out of season rains, ephemeral time
gives you eternal moments.
which in time you will forget.
it shrivels up like a prune
in the winter of your heart.
calendars pile up. And wind up
with a grateful scrap dealer.
one by one the clocks grow weary
of you, your indifference,
of not being etched
saved recorded remembered
cherished loved hated feared
hoped for, against -
and end their struggle.
timelessness could be
as much a prison
chimes the last one.
tick good
tock luck
silence.