my dream about time

a woman unlike myself is running
down the long hall of a lifeless house
with too many windows which open on
a world she has no language for,
running and running until she reaches
at last the one and only door
which she pulls open to find each wall
is faced with clocks and as she watches
all of the clocks strike
                                            NO

Clifton, Lucille. Next: New Poems (American Poets Continuum Series, Vol 15). Saint Paul, BOA Editions, 1987.