The tricycle, borrowed from Nana’s garage, flakes
black paint and lists port as I pedal up and down

along the uneven sidewalks in her neighborhood
of shotgun houses. I’m alone. It’s quiet, the air syrupy.

A three-story house, white siding, orange shutters, looms,
and I labor up the steep driveway, drawn by its profusion

of lush greenery, blossoms, August brilliance — that fade
to gray foreboding as I reach the top and turn to face

a configuration of clock-works, pendulums, wheels, cogs,
springs, weights, levers, emitting a cacophony of ringing,

grating, ticking, throbbing, pounding — to the racing cadence,
ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump, of my heart as I wake.