“Coil”
One shoulder takes the weight
while the other rests in waiting
for the slow steady shift.
As midnight settles, a rusty halo
emerges around the Nashville skyline,
and the hour exchanges regret
for numb awareness and silver stillness.
There is the sound of the airport sleeping,
of Interstate 24 slowing its shuttle,
the dim arterial hum of a city in relief.
And there is the clock, aching to reset -
a muted shift of method from gear to rod,
pin to pendulum, pulpit to hand,
and again to a series of gears,
where the key is not and never was.
It divides by twelves and by sixty,
and rations to each arm
an emotion of precise mathematics -
driven, by design, to find an ending
and at once another stark beginning.
One shoulder shifts the weight to the other.
The coil builds tension, and aches for release.
