Somewhere
It’s early morning.
I look out my window, through crisscrossed panes,
watch day thaw night.
There’s so much I can’t see,
yet so much I know happening.
Somewhere, a man gets his pocket picked. Another
drops his beloved grandmother’s teapot to the floor,
sobs as it shatters to shards.
Somewhere, a young girl goes in for her first kiss, while
another savors her last. There’s a robbery,
a pink slip, a man being hanged;
there’s a shooting star, a child’s first steps, and a
bouquet hurling petals over stem across a parquet floor.
There’s a drunk driver running a light,
a man letting his wife in on a forty-two-year secret,
and a couple sitting on the edge of their bathtub watching
two blue lines come to life on a little white stick.
Somewhere, maybe even close by,
an old man serenades his comatose wife, hoping some way, somehow,
she’ll hear their song,
a Sinatra tune from when they were young,
from when they first met,
from when they were.
There’s a boy scribbling answers on his palm,
a beagle being crushed on the open road,
and a man making parole for a crime he never committed.
There’s a teacher helping her students sound out words, a teenager
lathering up for his first shave, and a father
picking up the phone to call his son for the first time in years.
I continue to stare out my window,
watch rays of sun peak over dark hills,
feel the movement amongst the stillness,
see the smiles,
hear the screams,
study the sun along with the shadows,
add cream to my coffee,
stir white into black.
Mathieu Cailler is a writer and educator who is currently studying at Vermont College. Recently his work has been published in Epiphany, Sleet, Two Hawks Quarterly, Daily Love, and Scissors and Spackle.
