Timing

Is time a thought that we create, a crack
in space meant to alleviate the ache,
harness worn on the wrist like a shackled

prison bitch? I wonder what is at stake
if time is sent away, eternity
swept up in flame, forgotten like rampage.

Avoid the tick and tock purposefully,
and go on living like we’re in a dream.
Is time a scheme of our design? Should we

engage in its demise, refuse to teem
in quarantine, oh little clock of lies.
Steady against all odds till we careen

and fall into its vortex, terrified.
All our struggle to get from here to there
is lost in moments swirling to survive.

If time were our truest friend, she would care
about pulling us in and out with ease
and not laugh at our expense when affairs

of ours fail. Time assails like mescaline,
derails our dreams. She’s a black guillotine.

_____

Laurin Wolf received her MFA from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts program at Kent State University, where she was the poetry editor for Whiskey Island Magazine and an interviewer for The Wick Poetry Center. She holds a B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh in Poetry Writing.

Her poems have appeared in PMS, Pittsburgh’s City Paper, Two Review, and Madwomen in the Attic: An Anthology. She has been a featured reader at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh’s local radio show Prosody as well as at the Sphinx Café Reading Series, and Mac’s Books in Cleveland, OH. She currently teaches writing Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.