Documentary: Grandmother Looking At Time

are you ready?
look into the camera
speak clearly now

what do you want me to ask you

what would you ask your grandmother

what would your grandmother ask her grandmother’s grandmother

(last year)
(last week)
(last century)

would you look at the time

(last time)
(last-second)
(last-ditch)

would you watch the time sink.

deepening your face with ditches,
deepening your questions’ pitches,
time sinks like wrinkles.

tugging on your bones and pigtails,
pulling down phone-lines, empires, inkwells,
time sinks like gravity.

posing in imposing imperial orange,
roiling in boiling royal red
time sinks like sunset.

like a desert through the hourglass,
like an heirloom down the bloodline,
like grandmother into the sofa.

gravity crashes.
sunset cracks open.
the hourglass spills.

grandmother reclines,
hands behind her head,
watching the rays winking off her watchband.

by moonlight, firelight, bulblight, screenlight.

dust on the lens

would you look at the time

take as long as you can to answer each question
talk as long as you like.