The Hinge

I moved the watch over to the right side today,

my skin is too thin where the leather has rubbed.

The bone is a knob, a hard piece of clay,

where the pulse of the blood is quietly thudded.

I’m tracing the ulnar, the styloid, the bump,

waiting for a phone call to break up the room.

My nerves are a wire, a knot, and a lump,

while the evening settles in shadows and gloom.

The veins are a map of a place I don't know,

branching out blue under frost-bitten white.

It’s a fragile machine, the way we all go,

just a hinge and some skin holding onto the light.