Salvatore
Buttaci is an obsessive-compulsive writer who plies his craft many
hours a day. His writings have appeared widely in publications that
include The New York Times, USA Today, The Writer, Cats Magazine, and Christian Science Monitor. He was the recipient of the $500 Cyber-wit Poetry Award in 2007. His collection of short stories, Flashing My Shorts, has just been released (All Things That Matter Press).
Salvatore lives with his wife in West Virginia. His poem today
addresses a quandary we seem stuck with: how to make the clock stop.

he thought destroying clocks
could somehow take his mind
away from passing time
that he’d succeed in living life
entirely in the moment
without the tick-tock reminder
that nothing in life remains
not even life itself

so when he lay dying
the rhythm of his failing heart
reminded him how long
he had stopped wearing
the Bulova wristwatch
his long-gone granddad
gave him when he was twelve