Time to get down to business. Time to settle
Accounts and round the sums.
The sun’s loose change lies scattered on the floor
And shade has inched between the pansies and the mums.
The piper’s all played out, the whore’s been diddled,
And the shops have closed their doors.

Time to square with the clock’s big jaundiced eye
As it glares back at you
With those two sweeping hands that meet like shears
When you wake up not sure yet if the dream was true.
Time to answer the phone and tell us why
Your payments are in arrears.

Time to admit the check was never “in
The mail,” that you were never
“Between jobs currently,” nor was your card
Mischarged, stolen, lost. You’ve always been too clever.
You’ve always had the tendency to spend
More than you could afford.

How easily you fall for cheap distractions—
Long nights, gossip, and girls,
The highball tumbler sweating along its facets.
How easily, old swine, you fritter away your pearls
For one more chance to nose the world’s confections,
Squandering your assets,

Until look, it’s late: the leaves have gone the way
Of dames and dollars now.
The spider’s tallied up her last gauze beads
On the web strung between the porch and locust bough.
That wind sounds like the rake of a croupier
Combing the yellow weeds.

So run the spreadsheets. Balance the register.
You knew, of course—didn’t you?—
The bill would post, that notice for both prime
And principal: Records Show. Please Pay Amount Due.
It’s time to make good with your creditor.
Soon ends will meet. It’s time,

Dear customer, it’s time.

Original appearance in the Sewanee Review.

Morri Creech was born in Moncks Corner, S.C. in 1970 and was educated at Winthrop University and McNeese State University. He is the author of three collections of poetry, Paper Cathedrals (Kent State U P, 2001), Field Knowledge (Waywiser, 2006), which received the Anthony Hecht Poetry prize and was nominated for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Poet’s Prize, and The Sleep of Reason (forthcoming, Waywiser 2013). A recipient of NEA and Ruth Lilly Fellowships, as well as grants from the North Carolina and Louisana Arts councils, he is the Writer in Residence at Queens University of Charlotte, where he teaches courses in both the undergraduate creative writing program and in the low residency M.F.A. program. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with his wife and two children.