Turning Back the Clocks

I look through the crystal face,
watch the hands circle
around, hands turning,

not creating time but only
simulating the irreversible movement
of past into future, quickly

past the present. I can, surely, grip
the stem between finger and thumb
and turn the ticking sticks

backward, 5-4-3-2-1, but nothing
in the past is ever recreated, nothing
damaged ever fixed, not entirely,

like the eroding beach beneath
my feet—no Golden Age to
return, no, never, no future bliss

of Kingdom Come, only this present
moment. And I don’t know what
to make of it, this experiment

of the now that resists observation
or interpretation, and is unmerciful
to any miscalculation.

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