It’s nearly time; I know that.
Let me savour the moments,

relish my dashes to alter her clock,
March and October, since she remonstrated
with the vicar for being an hour late,

laugh about the night she presents herself at A&E,
scared witless by the regular bleeping in her ear,
leaving the smoke alarm, battery run down, at home,

delight in the funny sounds in her car
when the mechanic left the radio on
and she didn’t know she had one,

cherish the request to be taken to the consultant
about those marks from the cataract operations,
being unused to seeing her own wrinkles,

admire her jaunty steps into The Old Bell
to claim the Free WiFi offered outside,
thinking it was alcoholic.

I’m not quite ready to own the clock.

Nicky Phillips lives and writes in rural Hertfordshire, where she’s a member of Ware Poets. Her poems have appeared in Brittle Star, South Bank Poetry, and SOUTH; at Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Lake and Snakeskin; and in various anthologies. She delighted in being involved in Jo Bell’s ‘52’ Project.