Hands of the clock

I’m writing the hands of the clock into ice, into a still image my own,

I want them to stay

still, I want to stay here. my own hands shake as I whittle away

into sculpture, ice sculpture, frozen, still, I’m stuck, I’m frozen in

wait

Isn’t this what I wanted?

I started taking pictures without looking at the screen, I’m hoping to capture

what my eyes can’t relay

I’m in waiting, I don’t know what for. My words don’t make much sense anymore, neither does the music in my ears or the creases outlining this face in my mirror, this intruder in my shower

temptation wills still-life, gospel commands time-lapse, but fate presses

the pen into my hands.

tells me, "write the hands of the clock."

Do I write them forward?

I am the foot of the bed, the hands of the clock, the arms of the microscope the back

of the lunch line, the legs of the chair in the stack in the corner, a piece of patchwork possibly beautiful but nonetheless reliant on some larger, more concrete entity to confirm—to allow?—it to exist.

like a neglected subaru in a new england winter whose tires haven't been changed,

I'm drifting about