Even as I sit in my swivel chair finger-brushing my pencil skirt and shaking my round face "no", it's going on. Happening. Time is taking place. The chronology of the day, be it abhorrent or better, goes from one to two; from pinky to thumb.

The precipice of happening is always there. Darkness and falling and edges, same as always... beautiful, like a gravity star or fusillade, Time swallows.

It was me in winter just then, a spare moment before deadline to imagine happening elsewhere; other than where this pen of mine is clicking and the office staff mills with notions of grave importance.

Sometimes I think up ways in which I'd like to be swallowed. Like now, like as the pen clicks.

Somewhere near the equator, walking the line where beach and blue meet high tide. Peeling oranges in Fresno with the music at full blast. Naked beside you on a floor in Marseilles, practicing hard your Tao of sex, n'est pas? Et le Temps m'engloutit.

When she falls into me there is music on her breath...

Time was there, hungry and all fluid and ash with its loud tick-tocks.

From pinky to thumb, I count down the day.