TAKE TIME

Twist your neck like an owl back to when you collected days like squirrels.

When time was weak and green, unable to burn for anything.

Wash your shoes, you've walked on all the dead of the world,

and it's catching. Take time, as long as no one sees you

slip it into your pocket. Save it for later when you can savor it,

if it hasn't spoiled in the heat.

Stoop that thing you call a body down, sniff the thin and sharp needles

fallen from the trees around your uncle's pond;

this is how they sew the days. Don't ask where the thread comes from.

Don't you know anything?

You thought plastic would make you happy?

You thought rotting away to nothing was a horror?