In Other's Words

I Have a Time Machine by Brenda Shaughnessy

But unfortunately it can only travel into the future  

at a rate of one second per second,

 
which seems slow to the physicists and to the grant 

committees and even to me.
 

But I manage to get there, time after time, to the next  

moment and to the next.
 

Thing is, I can’t turn it off. I keep zipping ahead—  

well, not zipping—And if I try 

 
to get out of this time machine, open the latch,  

I’ll fall into space, unconscious,
 

then desiccated! And I’m pretty sure I’m afraid of that.  

So I stay inside.
 

There’s a window, though. It shows the past. 

It’s like a television or fish tank
 

but it’s never live, it’s always over. The fish swim

in backward circles.
 

Sometimes it’s like a rearview mirror, another chance  

to see what I’m leaving behind,
 

and sometimes like blackout, all that time  

wasted sleeping.
 

Myself age eight, whole head burnt with embarrassment  

at having lost a library book.
 

Myself lurking in a candled corner expecting 

to be found charming.
 

Me holding a rose though I want to put it down  

so I can smoke.
 

Me exploding at my mother who explodes at me  

because the explosion
 

of some dark star all the way back struck hard  

at mother’s mother’s mother.
 

I turn away from the window, anticipating a blow.  

I thought I’d find myself

 
an old woman by now, travelling so light in time.  

But I haven’t gotten far at all.
 

Strange not to be able to pick up the pace as I’d like;  

the past is so horribly fast.

Listen to the author read the poem here.