The Eye's Trickery (*prose poem*)

(after F. W.)

I have returned to a time when clock hands were unnecessary.  A carousel of them, thick steeled with black, and green numbers return me to a messy closet with a moldering keyhole. The doorknob is chipped red, firm against the wind.  A gigantic pupil
stares back blocking my view--a familiar human eye, maybe I think, playing the role of an ozone layer, a vulnerable succubus.
I recognize many pockets in the staring dune it represents and want to poke with my thumbnail. It blinks and I realize my time travel has stripped my hand of everything but pulsing bone.  I am now a skeleton in the closet of another's memory which will soon come to pass.  I ask to be taken back.  The pupil locks gigantically, forming a squinty mouth.  "This is what you wanted".