David Rosenthal

Clockwork
 
There’s no alarm on Saturday,
at least not one I’ve set.
I wake up early anyway.

I wish my body would forget
some things it knows by heart,
as though it thinks it owes a debt,

as though it just can’t bear to part
with some old, scribbled list
it never had the time to start –

abandoned plans that long since missed
their chance to implement
themselves, but clamber to resist

forgetting, trying to prevent
what’s already on its way,
or came some time ago, and went.

David Rosenthal is a public school teacher in Berkeley, California.  His poems and
translations have appeared in Rattle, Birmingham Poetry Review, Rising
Phoenix Review, Cosmic Daffodil, ONE ART, Teachers & Writers Magazine,
Measure, and many other journals. He’s been a Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award
Finalist and a Pushcart Prize Nominee. His collection, The Wild Geography
of Misplaced Things, was published by White Violet Press (Kelsay Books).