Always Noon

Gramma kept a clock that counted time aloud--

Grandfather Clock, because he’d been lost to us.

The face was ice.

With a child’s might, I saved snowflakes in my fist--
fury-faced that they would not cooperate.
And the clock kept count.

When Gramma died, my baby brother took her pain--
I must have got her heart.
The one that beats here 
now 
was never beating here before.

What happened to the counting clock is no concern of mine.