Issue Thirty-Eight - Summer 2021

Clocking Out

By Alan Perry

The metal gray time-clock
seemed to monitor every movement.

Its glassy face never blinked
as it belled interruptions through the day.

It knew when I began to work
went home, ate lunch

visited the restroom.
I had to punch it–not really a punch

more like a nudge with a card
inked with my name and clock number–

until it snapped down on a precise day
hour, minute–bracketed pieces of shifts

book-ended by morning’s dark arrival
more darkness in evening departure.

I wondered who ran the timepiece–
pictured a little man in a back office

rationalizing the worth of each worker
as he collected employee records

on errors, outputs, goodbyes.
Or maybe nothing was behind the clock

except a wall plug and cord
keeping it alive with voltage–

doling out daily stamps for temporal work
until the electricity is cut

and hands no longer matter.

Copyright 2021 Perry

Alan Perry ’s debut poetry chapbook, Clerk of the Dead, was published by Main Street Rag Publishing in 2020. His poems have appeared in Tahoma Literary Review, Heron Tree, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Gyroscope Review, and elsewhere, and in several anthologies. He is a Senior Poetry Editor for Typehouse Literary Magazine, and a Best of the Net nominee. Alan holds a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, and he and his wife divide their time between a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Tucson, Arizona. More at: https://alanperrypoetry.com

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