LISA FAY COUTLEY

During the Final Scene

Even then, in those early days,
time was a lukewarm bathtub.
You steadied your wrist & pooled
a Palindrome Fossil with a floating hand
to circumnavigate the dial, my smiling
sun & moon clock, the wall clocks,
alarm clocks, even our tiny hour-
glass timer from the top of the stove—
put them all in a silver bucket,
buttoned your jeans, pulled on your boots,
& marched them to the backyard
where you buried them in a dream
during the final scene of Apocalypse Now.
All this time spent to say it was nothing,
really. Yet we both knew the value 
of two beers & a shared cigarette.
What happened? That was the question
when you opened your eyes to my side
of the couch, but you’d been so late
in waking, so long in gathering, so diligent  
stockpiling all our time, I said nothing
& we held there, watching the credits.