Father Time by Christine A. Brooks

t
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c
k

t
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The grandfather 

clock, keeps

time, twelve

gongs. She 

has made

it to another day. 

Silence, outside the

dining room window

where she lay

dying. Darkness shrouds

the small house that

holds her body, while 

her soul prepares for flight. 

Tick tock. The grand clock just won’t stop

TICKING

If only it would, she could stay. The chime builds now,

at quarter past the hour. I wish I could hold the hands

of Father Time. Hold them tight, so they could not move, could

not take her to the place I cannot visit. 

The silence is pierced by the crunch of a slow moving car on the ice. Where 

are they going at this late hour? Tick tock. The pressure is mounting. The chime 

ever building on the grand clock, as it reminds me with every tick and every tock that

the night is fading, time is winning. And I am not in charge. Stop! Stop! I yell to the 

fucking clock. But it is deaf to my pleas, and just keeps marching on to the Valley of Death,

playing its death march tick tock tick tock. 

Half past the hour now the chime is louder, longer now taunting me. I hold her close stroke her
arm. Remove the cool facecloth from her forehead. It won’t help her anymore. His arms are
around her now. So I know it is time to let go. The clock has stopped no more tick no more tock.
Grief takes time they say but how can I heal when the clock has gone

silent?

____________________________________________________________

Christine A. Brooks is a graduate of Western New England University with her B.A. in Literature, and is currently attending Bay Path University for her M.F.A. in Creative Non Fiction. Most recently a series of poems, The Ugly Five, are in the summer issue of Door Is A Jar Magazine and her poem, The Writer, is in the June, 2018 issue of The Cabinet of Heed Literary Magazine. Three poems, Puff, Sister and Grapes are in the 5^th issue of The Mystic Blue Review. Her vignette, Finding God, will be in the December issue of Riggwelter Press, and her series of vignettes, Small Packages, was named a semifinalist at Gazing Grain Press in August 2018. Her poem, The Monarch, will be published in October, 2018 and The Man will be published in November, 2018 in the Amethyst Review.