Cicada

Again, the loveliest manners and phrases
Emerge—the bearings, escapements, balance wheels,
Mainsprings, hairsprings, gear trains, pendants, and jewels—

Of quintessentially mechanical time
Shaped from unplumbable synchronicities,
Conversations ticking over quietly

Among the elegantly powerful,
As charmed by their own invented precision
As alarmed by evening’s stochasticity

That will soon corrode such coordination
And, again, scorch their exquisite times to rust,
Ash, and broken springs, their fine manners to trash.

Time’s machined of fragile inequalities
And, like faith, can’t be spent, only broken with.