Horology

Yes, I understand certain things
are impossible. The mail carrier 
will never bring the letter I've wanted 
to receive just because it won't 
have been written. I think 

the one who should have sent it  
is suspended in one half of an hour-
glass, while I'm in the other. And the future
swings overhead, like a planet whose anguished
revolutions we're magnetically ordained to follow.  

I palm a handful of sand, wishing for a blast 
of heat to turn everything into glass— not 
chipped, not broken, only the kind that curves  
maternally into a hollow. I want to be rinsed
of grief before I'm nestled there too.