Friday, June 14, 2019

HARDWARE

by Gil Hoy


I’ve no use for
a stainless steel
lightweight

Corrosive resistant
contraption

That encumbers
my wrist
and can’t

Tell me anything
useful anyway.

“There will be time,
there will be time

To prepare a face
to meet the faces
that you meet.”

No, this soul
has no time

For a chronometer

With a full
date display,

Blue dial, rhodium-
plated hands,

And an alligator
strap—

I already know
too much about

Coffee spoons
and sugar spoons

Bus stops,
Trolley stops

Business meetings
and phone calls.

Preparing
for that
special show

A meeting
with the CEO.

And I don’t
want one
in my pocket
either,

Like a mouse.

Tick tock
Tick tock

I grow old
I grow old

My pants
grow mold.

Tell me
something
good–

Surprise me,
It’s my Birthday.

What I really
want to know is:

When will
my kids
grow up;

When will
my heart
stop beating;

And when will
the last
polar bear

step off
the last piece

of melting
Arctic sea ice

and silently
disappear.




Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and semi-retired trial lawyer studying poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry has appeared most recently in Chiron Review, TheNewVerse.News, Ariel Chart, Social Justice Poetry, The Potomac, The Penmen Review and elsewhere.