The Parking Meter at the End of the Universe

For some time, I've been wanting to enter one of my friend @neoxian's writing contests and today (which I spent on the couch with a laptop and a thesaurus) is the day! He assured me that a poem would be acceptable, and so I humbly submit this metered entry to his Daring and Intrepid Steampunk Writing Contest.

The clock was mocking mediocre seconds of her day;
A vain refrain, “it pounds my sense of harmony away,”
she mentioned, though to no one in her auditory realm
and gently lowered captain's cheeks on cushions at the helm.

Enclunking, several motors gave the ship a sputtered start
while rivets on her corset strained the pounding of her heart.
A fingerprint of sweat impressed the leather steering wheel;
and banking caused the gears to crank and scrape their teeth of steel.

Alone, she turned the spaceship toward the planetary void,
an emptiness where Alkemy was recently destroyed.
And where the spinning rock had been, an orb now sparkled red.
It beckoned to her goggled eyes and pulled, full steam ahead.

Like quartz, the crimson jewel marked the moments of her mind.
The time around it straightened, then unfolded and aligned.
Smooth... flat... long... wide... time shone bright.
Ship clanged... hands held hard, clenched fright.

Suddenly, happiness flooded her brain as the
time came in waves, not the beating refrain of the
clock that remained on the wall of the ship she held
hovering quietly, so ill-equipped to be
vanquishing planets exploding in space after
aliens killed off the binary pace.

And then she spied the Alkemy's destroyer manned with knaves.
It seemed to be marooned within the jewel's timely waves.
She thrust her foot, reversed the ship and throttled back the coil;
the engines, thirty-seven, now demanded mottled oil.

The copper walls were rattling through vacuum's silent show.
“Your oxygen is low,” the voiced computer let her know.
At one o'clock she logged the wounded target of her strike.
“Engage,” she said, while never breaking axis on the mic.

The rusted rocket launched in sparks that trailed like fairy dust
and grazed the ship so fast there was no time to readjust.
Their shielding down, she launched the lethal second of the two;
its better-aimed trajectory would finalize the coup.

Extending pipe-fit spindle arms, she focused on the gem
Mechanic fingers grasping near, its freedom to condemn.
A digit tip, it flicked the edge and sent it off careened.
Dejected, panting, on the console, lost, she slowly leaned.

The steady, stoic, clicking clock invaded with a sear.
Serenity was now a sound that only dogs could hear.
Anxiety for air became a buzzing, blurry tone.
Its piercing masked a pulsing sound: the ringing of the phone.

“Hello!” She slurred coordinates before awareness fled
and closed her eyes, resumed, resigned: the freedom of the dead.
At last, a captain's tophat through the black of space uncloaked.
Astern he pulled the tin-type ship and, tethering, enyoked.

But if the crew revives her, and the rescue's a success,
if kindness and concern can break her calm unconsciousness,
in waking's jolt she'll lose, again, the jewel's twinkling trick,
relinquishing the waves of time that shatter with a tick.

~Stephanie Herman