I have a pocket-watch.
It was in my father's things.
It was his father's.
The pocket-watch is wound tight
and needs a trip to the jeweler's
to unbind it's frozen spring.
Perhaps some little fingers got at it
long ago, maybe mine.
The pocket-watch isn't particularly valuable,
steel case, mass-produced.
Now I have a grandchild.
The pocket-watch belonged
to her great-great grandfather.
It is a great-great heirloom.
Is the jeweler's open on Saturday?
Our lives are finite.
Our existence is measured, set and fixed,
then we blend back into the elements.
Our great-great grandchildren are in the earth
mingled with their ancestors.
They will sprout in time.
My Grandfather's bones rest
in Oak Park, Illinois.
His pocket-watch is in a box in my spare bedroom.
He died long before I was born.
I have sepia-toned pictures
of his drawn working-man's face
with eyes that glint with a secret joke
under a broad-brimmed hat.
He never met Ilsa
but she is from him
and of him
and may very well pass him on.
Her eyes also glint with the secret joke.
She grins and makes my ears warm.
She will have pictures,
stories,
and a steel-case pocket-watch
that tick-tick-ticks
if the jeweler is open this Saturday.