Now and then
there is a moment marked
by a single tick
from an old schoolroom clock
that hangs on the basement wall;
relic taken from a modernizing classroom,
covered in plain dust and
no small amount of soot put there
after a backed-up chimney
filled the room with smoke —
it happened seldom but
often enough to be
an unremarkable event on its own.
A single tick for no reason.
No one cares if that clock works
so it’s possibly reminding us that it could
if we cared to clean it up a bit.
One tick in a room
where no one sees it moving.
“Here I am,”
it says in a room where no one
spends much time. Randomly.
Desperately,just in case
someone is listening.