To Linger Without Haste
a-gong
winks at me
from my wrist
from a different Time
1:08 am
flat hands slice
but don’t sever
sticky seconds
like lotus root
cut with mother’s
dull cleaver
stringy trails
suspended
between each chop-chop-chop-tick-tick-tick
shisha smoke lingers
but does not cling
not needy like cigarette smoke
which crawls into fingertips
and under fingernails
and never leaves
the nooks of my fingerprints
not desperate
like the air outside, tonight
so intent on
slipping its cold fingers
down my shirt
now, now, now
things are different in Here
Time moves like Breath
and Breath
like the Moments between Us