I check my pale wrist where my watch hangs
held up by a loose knot, turned from my judgement.
I do not push it so I may see its true face
for the lifeless swing it will create.
I leave it to its gravitational movement.
And as a result, I do not know the time.
Yet ticks crawl their way into my head
and bite down on sun-bleached bones,
for I have no humor left to feed them.
So they trickle away with my thoughts
like a stream that may one day nurture a river
and carve a path that cannot be denied.
No, I do not know the time
or the place I'll reside in when the flood
sweeps those ticks away forever.
But my bones fear not the changing landscape
as my patience is pendulumless
and floods cannot be bridged by swaying watches.
When the knot finally comes undone
I'll watch time plop in waist-deep water
and I will not be beholden to that parasite.

I will not know time.
Time will not know me.