it’s not a metaphor. the fabric
had clocks woven into the pattern
with all different times and circles

overlapping circles and i found it
on the internet from a girl i got drunk
next to on a summer balcony once and you

moved it from her parent’s house
for me and we noticed a bunch of dirt
that wasn’t in the picture and we scrubbed

and scrubbed it away with a special machine
we got from kroger or somewhere and
there were beads of sweat crowning your brow

i should have licked clean and we hauled
it still wet into a new sanctuary and i held
court there, reclining reclining reclining so hard

i broke it from the bottom up and i finally
had to let go the idea of it i accept i accepted
that this morning i had some old lover

haul it to the side of the road and for breakfast
today i sat in the morning curtain light waiting
to watch it be carried away; goodbye, stuck time

eaten in the garbage truck’s big metal mouth;
the man in the jumpsuit mercifully exorcises;
he hangs from the sideboard looking back like

a sailor leaving port.