The clock reclaims the room one murmur at a time.
Smoke thins; the glasses dry to chalky rings.
The sheets uncrease. What loosened learns its seam.
Your breath goes even. Nothing touches, clings.
A cat cries once beneath the radiator,
or maybe that was earlier—before
the light was killed, before the second pour,
before your watch came off beside the door.
The minute hand returns what it displaced:
the words you practiced, then the careful pause;
the bedroom clock, still ticking out of phase;
the name I didn’t ask you to withdraw.
At last the hour yields what started this—
a body standing where it wasn’t yet a kiss.