The hands of my watch have stopped

The hands of my watch have stopped
dead on the dial, frozen on the face of it

and the spoon full of steaming soup
is an inch from my mouth, arrested.

Anticipation is suddenly my middle name on
my license as the spoon drips back into the bowel,

clueless to how many hours have passed by us
like so many cars leaving the city once a factory whistle blares

or someone yawns the right number of times
as the sun drifts to the horizon, to sink beneath the sea.

The cat looks to be posing for cute posters of
cats knocking things over, like it's done tonight with

that drink that is stuck in mid air , in front of the TV
with the beer ad on where no can even lick the suds

from their mustaches because time has stopped for the time
because you're out of the room,

on a cell phone ,
smoking a Camel.

You are probably conspiring with a girl friend
to stuff me in burlap bag and leave me

on a corner in a bad neighborhood, thinking gypsies
or blues musicians will find me and give me something

to do besides moon over your image, holding my breath
until you come back into the room,

just like your doing now, coming through the door
reeking of filter tips, cell phone in your grip,

looking at me askance when you see me exhale,
blowing out candles in the process, oh yeah,

I mean it's okay, really, I'm just glad you're back
from the break you took in the middle of my proposal

which means that all the breakable things left in the air
in your absence can now come crashing down to the

hard tile floor, all the bric-a-brac and my world particularly
getting bruised, bent and shattered and breaking wide, wide open,

my heart is broken again
when it's time to swim

and there's nothing funny about this at all,
I mean,

you're kind of cute, the way you
reduce me to rubble
even in my finest
courting clothes.