Just in Time

Just in Time - a poem

Just in Time

This place in time
this moment in space
it swings on hinges -
a vacant parking lot,
an empty seat in the clinic,
a deserted beach.

Any where any time
it is odd -
odd to be in time,
just like it’s odd
to be too late,
to find a car already there,
the seat and the last magazine taken,
Frisbees slicing the view
and sodden candy wrappers at your feet.

Just like its odd to occupy a place
as if it were your birthright,
the slot by the curb,
the chair by the window,
the sand swept clean.

It’s odd to be alone in this way,
if only for a moment,
to feel the coin drop,
the spheres move,
and tumblers fall into place
and everyone else in the world elsewhere
or maybe on the way,
nearly here perhaps
or not nearly early enough.

Yet here you are
just in time
haunting a spot,
forever leaving,
perpetually mistaking
the space before you for
the time it took to get there.


by Kevin Cahill