A Poem by Alan Buckley

Watchmakers

– for R&D

They ease off the case’s back
and gaze into that private

universe, all impulse
and balance – the pallet’s

equal dance of to and fro;
the click and shift of meshed

wheels, lightly pivoting
on sapphires; the tight spiral

of blued steel, minutely
releasing its tension, that

slowly expands, driving
forward the two linked hands.

Alan Buckley is a poet, editor and poetry tutor based in Oxford. He is the author of two pamphlets, Shiver and The Long Haul, and his first collection, Touched, was published by HappenStance Press in 2020. He was a founding editor of ignitionpress, and for many years was a school writer-in-residence for First Story. He also works as a psychotherapist for a local refugee charity.