The inappropriate wrist watch
does not tell the time;
it slyly suggests.
Like the acquaintance not respectful of personal space,
the wrist watch takes your arm--
obsequious and demanding all at once.
The inappropriate wrist watch leers and fidgets,
making "two forty-seven p.m."
sound vaguely filthy and perverted.
In addition to the time, the inappropriate wrist watch offers the date.
The little number sits there,
like a room key from some misadventure drenched in shame.
If thy wrist watch offends thee, pluck it off!
However, then there is the problem of the tan line,
pale and not meant to be seen, like flab.
The inappropriate wrist watch is the admirer one cannot discourage--
the one who shows up at the door at odd hours
wearing shoes with mouths, and clicking its teeth like a second hand.
How, then, to avoid being lured into depravity and ruin
by one's inappropriate wrist watch?
Ask not for whom the tinny chime tolls--
it tolls for thee.
____________
'The little number sits there,
ReplyDeletelike a room key from some misadventure drenched in shame.' :)
Love the title and I love how you make the ordinary extradinary. Honestly, tell the backstory or inspiration on this one. I really want to know.
ReplyDeleteOh how you make time seem so perverted, cruel, and self-centered. Awesome job!
ReplyDeleteLaTonya--I've been writing love poems a lot lately, and I always like to switch things up, so I decided to write something surreal. I like to write these, and once wrote seven of them at a sitting. For this, I tried to think of something completely innocuous (the wrist watch) and then assign it an unlikely quality (inappropriateness.)
ReplyDeleteIt could as easily have been The Envious Light Bulb, or The Angry Bed Post, or The Pious Sex Toy.
... and I'll just wager it is one of those Mickey Mouse watches!!! Loved the trip to surreal land.
ReplyDeleteI plucked mine off years ago, and have never missed it since... :)
ReplyDeleteThe penultimate stanza really nails the surreal quality to the door--a nice little slice of insanity made prosaically real, Shay. Not to mention the chortling this induced.
ReplyDeleteThis is freaking hilarious!
ReplyDeletejust read this and the Pious Sex Toy. I think 'smirk' is the sensation rolling across my lower face.
ReplyDeleteawesome barely begins to cover it.
DH has been complaining about being the subject. I think you've given me a gift. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteYou are in a very funny mood:~) This one was also very clever. Loved the line about the date looking "a room key from some misadventure drenched in shame."
ReplyDeleteThis is truly a cautionary tale.
BTW I have difficulty wearing wrist watches because they don't last on me. They stop in a about a year, regardless of whether I wind or add batteries. It doesn't seem to matter. Consequently,I buy my wrist watches in cheap places:~)
Hilarious, kiddo, and no one does hilarity more originally than you!
ReplyDelete