MARTHA COLLINS
Times
The
Times
is right, he said at breakfast, time
is on our side. She hoped so; she'd hoped
it all in this good time, finding no place
in the gone-by out-of-mind. Though mornings still
this dark she wasn't sure: did she run against
it now, wind, sand in her face slapping
her down? Or was it, like some lover, running
out on her, not to be seized after all?
Remember the time, she started to say, but knew
he wouldn't, the times they'd shared no longer were
the same. Not that she'd keep time if she could,
not now, after that stunning fall.
In
no
time: was that what she wanted? Or full
time, one time, her own sweet time of life'
Races
The race is on the run, you said. It's not
what it used to be, I said, I mean the whole
question of it, not to mention answers.
Who's ahead, and how, of whom, and who
in the world is whom (sic) to who?
It
didn't
used to be this way:
race
is something we
made up, and anyway there's nine not three,
and changing all the time. I've only been in one
myself - SK? And the human one, we're all
in that, but mostly it comes down to two,
and then it's face to face, then arm to ann.
An arms race? A race war? But races run
one way, on one course, to one finish -
even the time you run against is on your side.
