Every Day

 the man who lives next door

died yesterday

or maybe the day before

or the day before that

no one knows for sure

when he slumped

and landed

face first

in a plastic bowl

of milk and cereal

the newspaper said

he died alone

among everyday objects

i stare across the narrow alley

into his dark window

as rain falls

in drops that grip the glass

like wide-eyed onlookers

and i recall the watch on his wrist

its silver second hand

the only thing on him that moved

still making time

though it no longer

measured his breath

how awful to die alone

someone said

what a tragedy

another added

but something in the stillness

won’t let me dress for sorrow

and something in the way

the bowl held his face

won’t allow me to disregard

everyday things

and when i close my eyes

to ask more of myself

i realize that

he did not die alone

instead

he landed in milk

bled from a mother

whose calf cried

on the far side of a wooden paddock

and cereal

plucked from watery rice paddies

in a distant country

by a woman’s sunbaked hands

and plastic

poured from the backs of fossils

a garden of tiny lives

who moved and ate and felt the rain

eons before we ever needed breakfast

and silver

blown from a star

smelt in a comet

and homesick as falling snow

no

he did not die alone

he died surrounded

and in his final moment

a thousand unseen hands reached out

to hold him

and i am comforted

again

by remembering

that he died

where we live

every day

 – kw

 

 

 Copyright © 2015 Kristen Wolf. All rights reserved.