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Metronome, by Julianna May

I don’t remember

becoming obsessed

with the passage of time


personifying Death’s scythe

like Donne or Spenser

even my students


are overwhelmed with Death

His black hood draped

over them, an invisibility cloak

wearing at the edges


----


Traveling down a mountain road

there is a shrine: flowers,

pictures, a blue basketball

like one won at a fair.

The ball rolls down

sticks in a grate at the bottom.

Driving up, after work

the ball is replaced

at the spot

where local high school student

was thrown from his vehicle.


----


When

does Death’s reality

hit? Maybe when

His icy fingers slide,

lace themselves

in yours or mine.


I don’t cry at funerals,


He has already

gripped my heart

splintered it

with His breath.


Is there a way

to look at Him

without longing for Him

to choose you?


----


My heartbeat clicks,

a metronome moving

with the hands of the clock

circling nearer nearer


Can you turn off sound

for a clock on the wall?

One must

shut it off completely

tear out the batteries

snap the springs.


How pleasant it would be

to exist without

that sound.



----



Dickinson heard a fly buzz.

I hear tires screech

glass shatter

horn blare through smoke


Dryads welcome me

between their leaves

sing with the ash

of another day done.



 

Julianna May is a poet based in Northeastern Pennsylvania, a graduate of Wilkes University's M.A. in Creative Writing, and a high school English teacher. She has been published in Nightingale and Sparrow magazine and Crepe & Penn. Find her on twitter: @JuliannaMay1216


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