Imagine Time arrived one evening after dinner
and started pacing around the house as always
and I stood up and finally admitted sadly
that I have fallen out of love with Time.

We used to get along pretty well. We spent
long afternoons slowly reading books or listening
to the Dead or watching football with Dad.
But since Covid started and I’ve been

in isolation, Time has become passive-aggressive.
It rests on the rug in a melted pool of itself
then jumps up and runs away toward the end
of the dark street, where a sliver of waxing crescent

hangs in the still summer sky. What an eccentric
performance! Time must have gotten to the end
of the block and just stopped, exhausted. I can’t
go on like this, year after year, in this frenetic

stagnation, the mind steeped in hidden pools
of memory like cold pitch. It’s a toxic relationship
and it’s time to grow up, pack Time’s watercolors
and shards of the past, and go our separate ways.

J. Kyle Kimberlin

Creative Commons Licensed