Poetic Flavor: Scratching

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Scratching
Tick…
Time has claws and teeth
Why not a beard and false teeth as well?
A clock ticks on the wall,
Old like the woman rusted into her armchair,
Scratching at the child’s jacket.
Stitching
Ticking

Tock…
The bearded man’s hands are sand on a beach,
Sealed in a glass jar
And labelled as to show that Johnny- 8 -was there.
The hourglass turns over.
Sixty years are swallowed by gravity
And the ticking of the clock becomes a pained squeak.
The grind of decayed clockwork as once youthful knees stoop,
To pick up his own grandson.

Tick…
With every jerk of the long hand another thread catches on a talon.
Another wound inflicted by the claws and false teeth
And sand in the beard of Grandfather Time.
We are Achilles,
Time wounds all heels.

Tock…
The jar breaks and
Grandfather John strikes the child,
Forces him to stand in the corner for eighty years.
Watches him cry with indifference.
Laugh with indifference.
Age with indifference.
Until finally welcomes him back with arms wide
And the hourglass tips over again.

Tick…
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