busted clocksonnet in tradette—stopped, stop't

then she should have walked quickly to every clock
reached in and stopped them like breaking
the necks of roosters
[all of it skeletal in this vision
her fingers, the clock-hands
tick tick nothing, no more]
whenever this moment was reached

how long did his clock go on when hers
had already stopped
and he was, not knowing, dead, his neck broken
on some farmyard stump

his heart already stopped from outside
—inside there, in the movement, the escapement
where it ticks
if there was no time left, no movement
he should have known

maybe he also could have raced to every clock
in his just-dead comb-house of dreams
stopped it all, set every hand to midnight
///but it was just left to roll

all of it now, even alarms, reminders
wholly illegal in the presence
of the unescaped dead

himself only a ghost, disregarded, required now
to be so silent in unstated euthanasia

only recently able to laugh at such alarms

all of it, this
ugh



.