“There was upon the sill a pencil mark”
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
There was upon the sill a pencil mark, Vital with shadow when the sun stood still At noon, but now, because the day was dark, It was a pencil mark upon the sill. And the mute clock, maintaining ever the same Dead moment, blank and vacant of itself, Was a pink shepherdess, a picture frame, A shell marked Souvenir, there on the shelf. Whence it occurred to her that he might be, The mainspring being broken in his mind, A clock himself, if one were so inclined, That stood at twenty minutes after three - The reason being for this, it might be said, That things in death were neither clocks nor people, but only dead.