The Day of the Clock

Dear boys and girls, consider the escapement
(fold your middle fingers in and stick
the thumb and pinky out, a little bent),
and a sharp-toothed spring-loaded wheel.  Tick

is the moral thumbnail as it hits
the V between two teeth. The tooth behind
dead in its tracks.  The ardent wheel insists,
but No! says the thumb, until I change my mind.

Little pinky whispers: Trust in me.
Thumb tips up and then....Pinky: Quick!
(the wheel is Youth, yearning to spin free).
Thumb: go for it.  Shifty pinky: Tock.

Till the spring goes slack, the wheel no longer yearns,
and pinky and thumb get tired of taking turns.