Count Down (Poetry)

My body clock has reached a sum of days
I cannot grasp how time has skittered past
eluded with its sly side-stepping ways
attempts to stay what slips away so fast.

While once they seeped each season’s now in flood
no more the lazy crawl from year to year
what thrilled the younger heart now chills the blood
as numbers roll and midnight’s face draws near.

The hands that mark the hour jerk and wave
mocking as another lap is run
with no reserve there’s little left to save
those threescore years already spent and done.

The count is on — each minute gunfire quick
machined into the winter-slowing thought
I’m losing every time I hear it tick
but pin the word — the echo almost caught.