In the Clock Room at the Railroad Museum by P.J. Dominiski

Art: Red River Bridge by Nancy Shuler

IN THE CLOCK ROOM AT THE RAILROAD MUSEUM

Tinkering tick-tockers all:

These are history’s duplicitous faces.

These are Observer, Arcade No. 1, Lobby Clock,

once proud to condescend every train.

And these old teachers, discipline-keepers,

wooden-stern, saw a city rise, gasping

ambitiously, swallowing the air of the epoch.

These round-faced wardens rest

together, as in a nursing home,

stubborn and righteous, retired and still

right. Performing a fine-tuned litany of 2:28

in slashing metropolitan font,

in tall and trim roman numerals,

in twirling squirrel-tailed serifs:

2:28, 2:28, 2:28 – save for the sole

digital dissident, flatly insisting

that the time is 28 minutes past 3.

You are young and you will learn,

they’ll sooner change you

than the whole punctual world,

You: meter of the ether, so very wrong

about nothing.