Time And Space

The Whirligig

He grabs my hand and says:
'Wife, we must squeeze each moment,
death’s our lifelong enemy
but every day together’s a win
against the whirligig of time.'

I try to close my eyelids on him
they flutter like dust motes
hanging, undecided things,
a pendency like me.

That day I ate with you
our teeth snatched the flesh
from globe artichoke leaves,
chins warmly goldened by butter,
our tongues sharing the taste
slow boiling delivers.

His nervous voice yaps on,
drilling a faith I don’t share
into every hole and corner
of my clenched senses.

He is more my enemy than time
because he can’t understand
lives are never lateral,
some moments imbed gold gleams
burning through years and years.

My prim and proper self
fleeing to the four winds, dispersed
to become the spinner, gee-haw, pinwheel.
It steals brief bits of time from him
for us to spend together,
it makes us space.