CLOCKS

I look for more than time in my digital watch –

the connection of the dots, direction

of the moments.  Always I remember Mother,

who slipped Father’s timepiece on her wrist

when his swelled up with final infections,

how she wore that watch for two years to the day

after he died.  And as she was going in

for the operation she would not survive,

she answered the nurse who asked,

“Why do you wear two?”

with “So one can watch the other.”