GRANDFATHER

He had strange, wonderful tools
But could fix his daughter's watch
With a knife tip and a bent wire.
His own watch was always
Precisely five minutes fast.
His shadow kept time by the sun;
The two of them never agreed.

When my grandfather played chess
In Union Square, his shadow
Would wander away to listen
To the blind man and his daughter;
She sang; her father played a flute.
Sometimes the shadow danced.