The Scrape

I wake up at 6:41 and wait.

The bedroom is cold and the silence is thick,

counting the heartbeats like the turn of a wick

until the headlights hit the garden gate.

Then comes the sound of the plastic blade,

a rhythmic grinding against the frozen glass.

I watch the orange light of his remote start pass

through the slats of the blinds, a morning parade.

He doesn't know I'm timing my life

by the way he clears a circle to see.

He’s the only clock that’s left for me

since the factory cut me out with a knife.