August 21 (02?)

How cold the breeze over the footbridge
making the railings hum. How reassuring time
on the bank clock, the highest thing on the skyline,

higher than buildings – open for business,
with customers and tenants, their mirrored worlds
concealing secretarial pools from the [ street ].

And the clock, above them, I see from an angle
when I run the bridge: and every mile traversed
extends my life-span an hour, so I’ve learned!

How much more time will the bridge provide me
if I take my time to run it? How much more time
can I gain once I have used the time I have earned

running circles? The bridge is a segment of a circle,
just a segment, but without it, where would the circle be?
From a bank of earth I could fall, before the impact,

my legs dangling over sea-water, above which
thick metal grills slap concrete as cars roll above them
to polish their edges. A harvest moon behind the clock

is big and golden, the numerous seas gray as pockmarks
on a Mercury dime, the entire image faint in the dusk.
How much more vivid time on the clock

rendered in lights upon the black marquee.
How much more self-evident the spectacles
made for ourselves, the lights, the humming wires.