by Jeff Moore

Created on: June 10, 2008

Tick-Tock

The words stretch out in the air
Between me and the old man
Suspended with the dust
That the sun reveals as it slides
Through the shades

"A week or less" they say
Seven days
168 hours
10080 minutes
Or less

He lets me take a minute
Silence, except for the grandfather clock
Cold metronome, making note of the seconds

In the sixty seconds he is dying,
The tumor icebergs across his throat
Blood pours from it and out of him
Red lava, bursting from his mouth
Cooling on his shirt

The clock is winding down
I open the body, pull the chain,
Lift the weight
Tick- tock it says

Later, when I fumble out the door
The fall trees are brighter
Leaves turned red as life chokes
Out of them until the wind
Blows them off the branch.

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