When she looks at the clock
It is 11:12
One minute too late for a wish
And it seems as if this is what her life
Is fated to be,
An array of just-missed opportunities
Sliding out of reach
Like so many grains of sand
Jumping to their death through the neck
Of an hourglass.
There is a bottle that her mother fills
With sand and shells and the beach
Of Nantucket
Every summer when they go.
She opens it now
Not to smell the happiest place in the world
But to recklessly pour it into
The shattered-off top of her father's
Expensive hourglass
The one that can't be turned over anymore
Because of her brother and his soccer ball
Years before he left for college
And didn't come home.
The shells clog together in the
Narrow neck
And the grains of sand
Commit a graceful suicide
Into the frozen time
Below.