Getting Older

I sat on the four-legged stool with a mug that I might

Just tilt back and drip the coffee into my mouth, a race

Of droplets teetering on the white ceramic against the clock.

As I put the mug down and raised my head to the grandfather clock,

It’s wood carved articulately with a gentle hand, and a gold pendulum swinging with the maker’s own might.

Beating its chimes against my heart as if it were a percussionist's measured race.

I pondered the echoes of the rhythms it was making, thinking not of sex or race,

But of the gradual ticking of my own internal clock,

And of the pounding on the dust that just might,

Break wide open the glass on the clock and put in place the end of the race or it just might end my own ticking.