mechanical clocks don't...

Love set me going like a skeleton watch:
your voice wound me up, a look pushed
the hammer struck the gear;
pretty soon we were syncopated
ticking out a rhythm.

I wind my time when I remember.
I keep its gears bared,

measuring me in taut increments:
rationing my allowances,
budgeting my attention,
counting down the wait
'til next time you and I coincide;
then I'll forget to wind, it and my faces will
pause.

Around you I forget my time, detest the reminder
we are lent hours. But I check
nearby displays in a panic--whether I make the bread line
or not, it won't stop rationing out
my piece of your company.

I pretend I can ferret the constellation of your freckles
away in a jar for a rainy day.
I pretend I can collect the softness of your voice
like a magpie obsessed with small memories.
I lie persistently while my watch scoops out the day
by centimetres,
with spoonfuls,
in medicine cups.

My watch and I know I can no more hoard
your love against your absence than
ripe fruit against the winter.
Memories are full of sugar and will ferment,
becoming more and less of ourselves
(  just as wine evokes a grape and feeds us steady pleasant poison. )

Each morning you must leave
I fight the cog of our brass watch
the dismay of rotting fruit,

We say See you soon, Drive safely, Call me,
Love you (so much I miss your morning breath, how
you hog the water when we shower, how we don't
have sex enough because I like it at night and you
like it in the morning when we've no time but the one
pre-measured) but I omit that last part.

Once you're gone I'll be fine.
The world is still here and losing is so
commonplace, and besides
with you gone I am
briefly untouchably fantastically invincible

so I put my watch back on.