Letters from NYC

Beyond Repair

Your watch stopped five minutes after you did.
A year later I've brought it out its drawer
where your things languish in disrepair,
(eye shadow, cell phone and receipts,
a scarf to hide a head without hair),
placing it on my healthy wrist,
I'm forced to adjust its link, and think,
unlike you, I have time before I leave.
Then I wait, hoping that with each stride I've taken,
with each beating of my pulse and hand that's shaken,
it will receive energy and be brought to life again.

This morning I awoke and saw there was no change,
shaking it in anger once again, I will it on.
Nervous, I sat in a repair shop,
giving anxious glances towards the back.
The attendant, finally returns it and
with an air of disappointment and despair,
confirms your watch is definitely beyond repair.
"Somehow its coils and springs were tossed about,
pushing them all inside-out."
The news of this violence affects me,
tearing at my own mechanism greatly.

I hurry home, dead watch in hand,
saddened by its passing
and sit in wonder, how you,
struggled for 3 years
against time & frame of mind
to wrench some seconds
with great might
hoping in the end
you wouldn't lose your fight.

~ me 2/7/07
On the anniversary of my friend's death to breast cancer