I have two watches

One black and one gold

Solid gold

The black one was cheap

And the gold one was free

I found it crushed

Face down in soft asphalt

On a hot summer day

In LA

That was forty years ago

Give or take

It stopped working this week

​

It stopped keeping time

So I took it to The Watch Shop

Where Jason replaced the battery

Then it stopped again soon after

When I donned it, so I took it

Back to Jason to repair it

Then it worked again

Until it didn’t

When I donned it again

​

My black watch can track

Only time, no days or dates

It is “water resistant”

But it fogs when I sweat

Jason said it is “impossible to

waterproof a watch…”

so my watch tells me when

I am hot

​

I have two watches because

I read when I was young that

A man should match his watchband

To other accessories like

Belts and shoes

So I have two belts also

Black and brown

​

I found two pocket watches in

My father-in-law’s stuff

Very old, elegant, and idle

Jason said they would cost more

To repair than their worth

I thought of the sixty dollars

That I gave him to

Repair a free watch that

Still didn’t work

​

I read this morning that

Geminis would have

Abundant happiness

Beginning this week

So I await that fate

​

I called The Watch Shop to

Ask Jason about my

Still broken gold watch

​

A man who was not Jason answered

​

“Jason is not here.”

​

“He passed away on Tuesday.”

​

It was Thursday.

 

 I became sad,

and wondered if Jason was a Gemini.