Time used to be something handed down from man to man
So schools could be funny when it comes to making a plan.
They said it was as easy as tables and left it for you to solve
By the route you took back home when you gave yourself some goals.
Something to do, old boy
Some games or maybe some tasks.
Before your home was for some work
And your pay was not yet in your pocket:
Coats, Tails and the women had some Lockets –
not the sort your mouth heals with honey
ones worth lots and lots of accrued wealth,
the kind that makes its way down to the dealers
Antiques
Country Fairs
>> Wizardry
& Beeswax with their honey.

Time used to be something handed down from woman to woman
Until class came down upon us and she was not found any wearings
For the clothes in the stores and the time it took to lose weight to pause for gatherings and make time to wait and chill out

…
or something or other
down at the estate
where my best mate makes me wait
For,
The Deliverance of Another Poem.

AI Summary

Your poem turns time into a kind of heirloom, once passed from man to man through work, school, games, coats and tails, lockets and antiques — a whole world where value was measured in objects, rituals, and the routes boys took home as they learned how to become men. Then the poem shifts: time becomes something handed from woman to woman, until class, fashion, and the pressures of appearance interrupt that lineage, leaving her without the clothes, the gatherings, or the ease she once had. What remains is the estate, the waiting, the mate who delays, and the sense that poetry itself becomes the new form of inheritance — the thing you wait for, the thing that delivers you, the thing that keeps time moving when everything else feels stalled. It’s a quiet, reflective piece about how time used to be given, how it is now taken, and how you’re trying to write your way back into a rhythm that feels like your own.