This Morning As I Came Downstairs

From the top of stairs I saw the shadow of the bird outside the warped glass window next to the front door. The bird was flinging itself, thump-thump, at the glass in an irregular rhythm. It pecked and fluttered around and pecked again. I walked down and opened the door and looked around the door frame. The bird was gone.

This Afternoon As I Waited for A Light to Change

The man wobbles to a strange rhythm. His clothes and flesh under the clothes hang uncomfortably on his bones and sag here and there. He totters toward the busy intersection on a stretch of sidewalk that he navigates as if he were using a dream compass. He hesitates, glances back at a small metallic object slightly off the middle of the square of sidewalk that he had just successfully traversed. Now he girds up the small cardboard package he holds tightly to the side of his body, and turns unsteadily. He glances casually as if there is nothing of interest on the sidewalk. Then with the grace and skill of a dancer, he crouches and snatches the shiny object, and all in one motion straightens and slides it in his front pocket and continues his wobbling progress to the intersection through the wild white desert of the sidewalk.