A Portrait of My Mother as a Wrist-Watch

I see shoulders
hanging heavily like balanced weights upon a sturdy hinge.
Her arms the unpolished latch of a filing cabinet
coated to the tip with the oily gleam of deadlines and reminders.
She shifts her attention tediously,
                                                    her expression now centered,
                                  she holds my profile securely within her tight clasp,
                                              the curved confinement of her gaze.
                                       Her patient surface, breaking apart beneath
                                 like panic, drowned out under tones of reassurance.
She hums muted sacrifice softly, whispering its ticking notes like a lullaby,
the scratches on her favorite record, free
of a broken needle.
Her eyes like amber
Still holding on to its relics.