Every day the delicate gold
circled my wrist, a gift
from someone loved a long time ago.
Today, the watchband clasp
mysteriously gave way,
watch tumbling through the air
from the stairs above the subway tracks.
My arm still felt its presence,
yet it had already hurtled
down onto the tracks,
the time vanished in which I could have changed
anything, fixed that clasp before it failed,
prevented the falling,
the losing.
Elizabeth L. Merrick lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. She and poetry have stayed together through thick and thin. She loves poetry that sees deeply into everyday moments, and that is her fondest aspiration for her own writing. Elizabeth is also a clinical social worker and health researcher.