Bedside

Listen:
that clock of yours is sick,
or maybe time itself is ill. 

Trust me on this: you’re going nowhere.
I won’t let you go, not until the daffodils
in the front yard are fully up and open.

There’s bad television to watch yet,
lots of it.  Enough that we could get tired
of watching and go for a walk — there, it’s settled:

you can’t go until we’re both tired of bad TV
and we decide that even a walk up and down
this terrible hill of a street is better than that.

Listen, listen to me:  that clock of yours 
is sicker than you, time itself is what’s ill,
they’ve both lost their minds, you’re going nowhere

until the daffodills have bloomed twice 
and we’re thin from walking away
from bad TV.  Not this spring but next

we’ll replant the beds out front and get
something other than daffodils in there,
I know you love that yellow but face it,

everyone’s got daffodils.  When we walk
the hill, you’ll see.  You will see all the daffodils
in all the neighbor yards.  You’ll see

how the robins are back.  You’ll see
all the sodden trash of after winter
and how much still needs doing.

Just listen to me please:  your clock
is sick and so is time itself.  Please
don’t agree with them in their fever.

Please don’t agree with time,
with how it’s burning you up.  
Say you’re going nowhere, please.  Say

the only place you are going
is to the couch to watch bad TV with me
until it’s time for our walk.  

Say the clock
is delirious, is making a huge mistake;
tell me it’s too sick to ever be right.