POEM
Watch Repair
A small wheel
Incandescent,
Shivering like
A pinned butterfly.
Hands thrown up
In all directions:
The crossroads
One arrives at
In a nightmare.
Higher than that
Number 12 presides
Like a beekeeper
Over the swarming honeycomb
Of the open watch.
Other wheels
That could fit
Inside a raindrop.
Tools
That must be splinters
Of arctic starlight.
Tiny golden mills
Grinding invisible
Coffee beans.
When the coffee’s boiling
Cautiously,
So it doesn’t burn us,
We raise it
To the lips
Of the nearest
Ear.
Charles Simic, “Watch Repair” from Charles Simic: Selected Early Poems. Copyright © 1999 by Charles Simic. Reprinted with the permission of George Braziller, Inc.
Source: Charles Simic: Selected Early Poems (George Braziller, Inc., 1999)
