Morning News
To you, The name of your hometown came up on the morning news. Familiar signs and streets passed across the screen. I stopped mid-sip of my coffee and heard that name twice over. I thought of the alleys you used to walk there, but those alleys were already the way they looked after you left. Was the morning you saw there the same as mine, I wonder. The same light, the same dust, the same air. That thought held me for a moment, and when the news ended it let me go quietly. The weather in your hometown must be lovely and clear today.
Even after the news ended, the name of my hometown lingered a moment at the edge of the screen. I once saw the sign from my hometown reflected in a subway window. The shop had already changed hands, but the letters reflected in the glass were just as they'd been.
That the letters on that sign are still there, you find yourself checking every time you pass outside the window. Something similar happened to me. One brick wall left where a theater had been torn down stays an unusually deep color only on rainy days.
When the news ended, outside the café window was the familiar crossing of the neighborhood I live in. Wondering whether my hometown's clear weather reached this far, I took one more sip of coffee right where I sat.
Whether that weather carried this far, I sat by the window thinking only of that. Wondering if the warmth of the coffee you drank might still be there, today I mean to stay in that seat a little longer myself.
On the television I turned on after the news, the same name came up twice more. Meanwhile, on our balcony, one more sparrow had come to sit on the window frame, side by side.
On the screen you turned on after the news was your alley, and then two sparrows sitting side by side on the balcony. At least while they sit on that window frame, I find myself hoping your day is truly clear.