Like a Sentry it Stood...(I.P.)

At the end of a long, dark hall –
a grandfather clock. ‘No relation
of yours, child’, she would say,
with a crooked half-smile.
In bed of an evening, I’d listen
as it chimed...on the hour,
a quarter-past... a quarter-to,
and half-past.

So, four times in each hour
I’d know the exact o’clock,
but what of those minutes
in between? Did time cease
to exist, I mused? Such
a waste...all those moments
stretching out like paths,
unexplored, and staircases,
unclimbed.

Only thinking of this,
I’m transported...back
to moist, muggy nights...
leaning out my window...
marshmallows – melting
on my tongue – listening
to mariachi mosquitoes,
and wondering why time,
went so slow.