Father's Time

it now seems so clear that time and he

provoked mutual feelings of mistrust

dad hated daylight savings time pretense

sometimes refusing to change timepieces

or letting them tick long after adjustment

would have measured his morning booze

years and years after death grappled

with his stubborn insistence on style

clocks could suddenly wind themselves

to their minute of permanent oblivion

folded hands forever paralyzed against

Westminster chiming a sullen 13 o’clock

even father’s precise death moment,

unknown to professional timekeepers

governmentals whose very lives depend

upon a dotting of ‘I’s and crossing of ‘t’s,

lives within a perpetual mystery realm