Point

The clock has a hitch in its mechanical throat,

and I’ve forgotten the dates of the wars that they wrote.

The silence is thick, like a wool-padded room,

until someone stands up in the middle of gloom.

He cranks at the handle, a dry, silver sound,

where the teeth of the gear turn the cedar around.

A pile of shavings, all jagged and thin,

is shivering soft in the clear plastic bin.

The graphite is sharp and the wood is stripped raw,

a point that could puncture a hole in the law.

He sits back down with his yellow-cased prize,

while the dust of the cedar gets into my eyes.