One eye
strikes a deadened pose,
her clockkeeper he-love
sprung up on time for this date
but his ticker’s stalled.

Adora-Bella’s eye askance
at the clock tower’s peephole.
Chain wheels into the coil
propelling bell-bronze clinks,
passing modulations dingdonging,
shot-back screws.

Inextinguishable desire must turn
with the set-going of this mechanism,
driblets, pressures of blood,
spring-fine fingers.
Ear-drums for gathering clouds.

Inside his slowing chest
the valley of shadows
evokes time’s eerie chimes
hung along blackthorns
in paradise or earth.