Between the Beating Clocks

    Cheap， made to travel they throw their tiny drumbeats out in stereo from the bed table

    to the work station.  They fill the room

    with a music of ticking， only just out

    of synch.  It could be maddening，

    Poe's buried heart， or that spinning toy，

    a shuttlecock， ratcheting over nylon cord

    slap， slap， slap.  Or the body's racket

    in the blood， the slow tock of sex undone¹.

    It soothes³， they do， soothe²， the ping-pong

    rhythm of their second-clapping hands：

    red line， a vein⁴ between this and that.