The final straw of a relationship

THE WATCH

My love gave me a watch.
It was finely wrought
In the heart of the watch country.
When I saw the immaculate crystal sparkling,
My soul sighed.
Delicate designs embraced the band.
I wept:
The genuine thing!
The dials were precise.
"Keeps perfect time--with your heart,"
She blurted.
"It's waterproof, dustproof,
shockproof and crushproof.
Take care and it will last a lifetime."

I received the gift of love and tested it.
I drowned it in an ocean.
I buried it in sand.
I dropped it from a second-story stairwell.
It was scarred, but still throbbing.
One day, in anger, I hurled
The pulsing instrument against the door;
It missed a tick or two!
When at last I pressed a burden
On the fragile device, it stopped.

That was the same day my old love
Ran out the door, sobbing,
"No more!  No more!"

1968

By the time Monsters in a Half-Way House was published (1981), my marriages had ended. "The Watch" was written half-way through my first marriage.