Every day I eat a clock,

excrete a clock.

Time jewels around me.

Blue diode digits flash in my eyes.

In my cave, I liquefy the crystals—

make them seethe and blaze.

I text spells that writhe on the pulsing quartz walls,

answer invisible psi phones from the future.

Piles of hoarded sundials, solar cells,

pendulums, balance wheels, church bells,

wristwatch gears, faces and hands,

broken hourglasses and their sands,

from too many distant lands,

surround me.

Sapphire chips, alarm chimers,

and yellowed daytimers.

Paper calendars,

atomic oscillators, and

marine chronometers.

Mainsprings, bezels, windup keys,

as far as the eye can see.

Chronographs, escapements, and star charts,

rock, water, electric, and cuckoo parts—

everything with a tick or tock

heaped around me.

I am a time bomb, set to detonate

into an unknown future.

A Druid terrorist,

waiting for his moment.

She planted me ticking here—

my co-conspirator, mad lady bomber.

Snared with my own spells, beguiled and caught by her

like photons, we are quantum-entangled forever.