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