The Cuckoo Clock, by Joanne Durham

The Clock Maker, by Johann Hamza (Germany) before 1927

​The Cuckoo Clock

I confess, I bought it as much for me 
as for my parents on my travels in Europe,
still more daughter than woman,
still living at home between college semesters.
I wanted to witness the heart-carved attic doors 
of its latticed chalet body open 
for the cuckoo’s hourly call. Each time
the delight of it, never mind knowing
it was coming, the way a child laughs over and over
at Jack popping out of the box. From a clock maker
somewhere near the youth hostel nestled in the Alps, 
I sat and watched him fix watches, tiny instruments
fitted into equally tiny spaces, all to make time
tick on, for us to count the hours and days 
and get from here to there. My days
not so tightly wound, I went to Europe to feel
history, Eurail pass in hand,
long Indian print dresses and knapsack. Time
was on my side and I knew it, in no hurry
to become something other than myself. (Years later,
startled when asked what he wanted to be
when he grew up, my son replied, won’t I still be me?)
I loved the not knowing, how I could be 
as intricate as the gold-plated handles on the drawers
in the clock maker’s shop, my gears not yet meshed
to move in one constant rotation. The art of time,
never wasted, passed down to the clock maker
from his father, and his father before him, knowing
each second relies on the one before to get its bearings.

Joanne Durham

Joanne Durham is the author of To Drink from a Wider Bowl, winner of the Sinclair Poetry Prize (Evening Street Press 2022) and the chapbook, On Shifting Shoals (Kelsay Books 2023). Her poetry appears in Poetry South, Whale Road Review, Vox Populi, and many other journals and anthologies. She teaches workshops in ekphrastic poetry online and in person. Joanne lives on the North Carolina coast, with the ocean as her backyard and muse. Visit her at https://www.joannedurham.com.