The Regulator
Its long, brown wooden case hung
on the kitchen wall in the first house,
the heavy, brass pendulum moving
deliberately above my grandmother standing
over the coal stove stuffing pork with garlic
and baking trays of halupkies,
moving above the three generations
elbow to elbow around the table,
above the evening penny card games,
above my mother at the window, dishes washed,
watching the sun set over the zinc plant,
above my grandfather reading his Slovak bible
as everyone else went up to bed.
It stood above the busy lives deaf
to its sound and above the boy, alone
in the house, dust motes rising through slanted light,
the clock clicking him into loss.