Dawning
The clock whispers half past noon.
Coffee is cold and bitter in the pot.
He coughs as he swallows the grounds.
Outside, yellowing leaves flicker
Like ghosts behind shifting curtains
Of trees drowsy with autumn.
And winter creeps in with a draft,
Cold fingers under doors,
Licking window corners
Gnawing the daylight like a soup bone.
Reasons like seasons turn
With the unflinching certainty
Of hands across a clock face
Or the sun along its mad arc
Through a ruthless heaven,
Breaking on nameless gray hills
And bleeding magnificently out into evening,
Scattering yesterday's hope
Across an obsidian sky.
Out of reach,
Glimmering,
Like smiles in the eyes of dying children.
Tears gather like spittle on the old man's chin.
He clutches his dinner spoon and waits
For someone else's life to end
Or his own to begin.
Submitted: January 20, 2011
© Copyright 2022 Children Adrift. All rights reserved.
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