Office Clock

I never noticed the clock’s face,

plain white, rimmed in dull metal,

numbers faded like tired eyes,

ticking steady without flair.

Today it chimed—a sudden sound,

sharp, cutting through a drone of voices.

I looked up, surprised to find

this object I’d never truly known.

Square hands moving in quiet rounds,

a scratch near twelve, a dent in nine,

the clock hangs silent, ordinary,

a backdrop to the days I let slip.

I cannot paint its details from memory,

it’s just there, unnoticed, passing time,

a bland witness to my missing focus,

a thing I see but never see at all.