Urgency

You take time to function
you count the drops of water
that drip out of the tap in the morning,
in your routine to wash your face.
Savor, tasting the clouds on your way
outside. Grip the wilderness in a flower
You take it slow, for we are never short of time
there will be enough for the completion
of sacred duties and sinful rushes.
You fall in love slowly, unaware that
the slower you fall, the harder you will bruise
lilac and green and red with sores
sprouting like fungi. I, unlike you
go about my day from mattresses to mistress
to jogging past the dewy roses and the flaky roads
ticking like a clock, I reach for east and west
knowing the moments do everything but wait-
must I teach you to reread the watches? to circle around the calendar
saying: the red are the bad days, the green are the days to reap
and the violet are the days we have left to live
I am not God, nor am I made of stars to tell stories of age
I leave a circle for you on the day I came into the world,
another for the day we met, urgent for you to connect the dates
and understand that only a dying woman would know
the preciousness of the hour.