gambling against the position of the sun as it relates
to a single semi-stationary belly button
suspended in this epoxy gravity
quartz-like but the tell, like a bad card player
is often only obvious to the initiated

tell us then which clock do we measure
all of this feels outside Greenwich and the trains
they only run in memory and even then
on rusty chronometers:

you were seen there on the platform
clutching your ticket like a ill-fitting parachute
3 AM in the rain ignored even by the street walkers
in the shadow of the mis-timed oracles
there on the river like a desperate prayer

betting against the house