High Noon in June, Clock Hands Rusted Still

By Navya Shukla

High Noon in June, Clock Hands Rusted Still 

By fourth year Zoey Stephens

A life upended in time

Churned up in turned up dirt

Rusted nails and broken barnwood

A newspaper scrap from the year he died

They tore up my grandaddy’s old shed

Since the tin roof was falling in

Like tearing up his gravesite

The work he had put in all his life

It sat untouched since two thousand and nine

That june was colder in my memory

A still life portrait suspended in time

Is this what he thought he’d be remembered by?

Tin tobacco signs and rotted old saddles

Coke bottles circa 1978

Cattle yokes and barbed wire fencing for billy goats

Cast iron tools rusted in old wooden crates

It seemed like time left him there

a memorial he built for himself

Now turned over into the earth

Sold off for scrap metal

I sat there and stared at the ruins

And I thought of what he’d think of it

And I smiled to myself because I knew what he’d say

“That damn insurance company can-”

Yes, I knew what he’d say

I left him in time but my memory don’t fade

And he was sat there beside me as clear as day