Morning Alley
Turning into the alley early in the morning, my lips move before I know it. Trying out, a little differently, the answer I couldn't give yesterday. As the words came to an end, a drop of dew fell from an ivy leaf. The morning had not yet passed those words on to anyone.
At the far end of the morning market, I saw the curtain of a pajeon stall swaying. As that curtain folded once in the wind and opened again, a young woman pouring out hot water murmured something to herself. Her words were swallowed by the sound of the water hitting the ground.
Words said to oneself seep into the water like that, then into the ground, and I walk on over the steaming dampness left behind.
At the end of that alley, on the wall where the shadow hadn't yet lifted, I was sitting. The morning air sweeps past my ear once.
That drop of dew seeped in beneath the wall, carrying the answer I'd murmured. Whether the moss is growing greener in that spot, I mean to go and see today.
A pigeon perched on the clothing donation bin at the end of the alley stopped preening and looked at me. As if caught practicing words alone, we studied each other a moment before the pigeon turned its head first. I too soon moved on.
In the moment the pigeon turned its head, I saw a cat on the wall yawn. It seemed a little of the words I'd been practicing slipped into that yawn.