So is this what my days will look like now—
reopened, resumed, retuned, restarted,
like over winding antique clocks, the how
requires a key. These moments, my most unguarded,
will likely kill me. Time’s the brute I know
who stalks the city streets, then soon departs—
it’ll bring me to my knees and, bowing down,
I’ll yield. But what of it? My true remorse
unrests my soul—I dare not let it show—
the beast which skulks along besides me wants
to leap on strangers, neighbors, sweethearts, kin.
I watch all his inadvertent ways
click off the broken hours of days grown thin.
Love or fear? He spins the wheel. And I wait.

Lois Roma-Deeley’s most recent poetry collection is Like Water in the Palm of My Hand (2022). Her previous books include The Short List of Certainties, winner of the Jacopone da Todi Book Prize (2017); High Notes (2010)– a Paterson Poetry Prize finalist; northSight (2006); Rules of Hunger (2004). Her poems have been published in numerous anthologies and journals, nationally and internationally including Academy of American  Poets’ Poem-a- Day Series, Rust + Moth, Orbis, Post Road, Quiddity, Spillway, The Citron Review, The Columbia Review and many more. She’s Associate Editor of the poetry journal Presence. Roma-Deeley is Poet Laureate, Scottsdale, Arizona. (2021-2024). http://www.loisroma-deeley.com.