He watched her finger the record player before slamming the door open. The music drifted into the bathroom, Simon and Garfunkel reflecting off the tiles like her thoughts reflected in the mirror. Pale tiles—cold tiles, he knew. Not that he could feel them, but the way her teeth clenched and her toes curled must have been from cold instead of grief. They’d never been close enough to grieve for each other.

He watched his wife, watched her with unseeing eyes, unseen. Taking in her details. Those details, the mismatched earrings, the twitching fingers, the watch needing new batteries. She stared at herself in the mirror, meeting her own eyes. Her eyes were dry, very dry, but she breathed in through her nose so abruptly that he reached out to her.

But he’d lost limbs just two days ago, and now he was only a memory in her eyes. He couldn’t reach out to comfort her—not even when he was alive. He watched her as he fingers stopped twitching, and instead curled into a pale fist. Goosebumps climbed up her bare arms. She wore nothing but a tank-top and sweatpants, and with a jerk he realized that those were his sweatpants. As if she knew what he was thinking, her fist suddenly grabbed onto said pants and tore. They flew off, and next came the tank-top. Tearing and tearing and tearing until she stood naked in the mirror, never breaking eye contact with herself, with him.

He’d seen her naked many times before, but never had he seen her so naked. The dry eyes were suddenly not so dry, and he saw his reflection in them. The face that was no longer his face, sunken in death, a frown on his face lower than any frown in life, his cheeks sagging, eyelids sleeping.

The tears fell, and he felt a tug yank him away from the mirror and mismatched earrings and Simon and Garfunkel, away from the cold tiles and broken watch and the goosebumps. He’d never been a good husband, and he’d often left her all alone, silent in a silent house.

But at that moment, when he had no choice but to leave, he found himself wanting to stay.

He looks like moonshine, sitting on the walkway, alone and silver. His hair braided, his beard rough and scratchy. The sight of his clothes smells from behind the car window, and I hear myself stare. He hasn’t looked up at me yet, but I feel like his eyes are on me. His eyes have already arrested me, pinning me down with the words on his cardboard sign. That is something that everyone should know: words have eyes. Words watch you and even after I’ve read them I can feel their gaze on me, weighing me down and judging me. Words have eyes. A staring contest. After all, words are strangers too, until you get to meet them. 

Finally, he looks up from the cold concrete. His eyes are blue, a dark blue, the type of blue that seems indescribable because they look so deep. He scans the cars held hostage by the stoplight, and I am ashamed at how thankful I am for my tinted windows. I don’t know him, but I could have written those words on his cardboard sign myself.

“Please help me.”

I don’t know him. He looks at the cars with an exhausted expression, because he knows that the cars won’t give him help, they’ll give him exhaust too. He runs a hand through his silver, and for a brief moment I think that he knows that I’m looking, staring at him. But then the light turns green, and I find myself hoping that his future turns green too.

I think we meet eyes before I drive away.

I’m not sure though. It could’ve been the moonshine.

The mornings are hard, are they not?

Waking up I have to meet the day

Never does it greet me back, or so I thought

Until my alarm clock told me to go away

“Get more sleep!” it shouted, and I complied

I slept until dinner called from the table

But the food left me hungrier; so I sighed

And my thoughts flew up onto the gable

I asked them quite politely, with a please

Would you please return, good thoughts of mine

But they refused and made outlandish decrees

Such as “Wasteland!” and “O My Darling, Clementine!”

Eventually I wrestled them to the floor

Took a shower, brushed teeth, and I forgot

To reset my alarm clock once more

The mornings are hard, are they not?

Faintly in the morning glimmer

Beside the foggy stream and lawn

I glanced up with a heavy yawn

Snatching the sight of a shimmer

At first I thought of this thing naught

It was the dew, which leaves yet shorn

In such a morn have often worn

It was but this, but naught, I thought

But the shimmer, it had not left

Trailing my gaze like a trained hound

To left my eyes, to left it bound

Like a good thief in search of theft

Only the faded grey lodestone

Then heralded the rising day

Another day of dark dismay

No lamp nor light; I was alone

So what could cause the shimmering?

Some theories dumb, I murmured soft

Like when my lover left, I murmured oft

With teardrops hot and glimmering

Dimmer than flashes from the stream

Yet brighter than my lover’s eyes

Rejecting eyes, a loch of lies

Reflecting in my every dream

Perhaps some ghost or specter’s curse

A vigil keeping in the dark

A flicker of a life, a spark

Afloat alone without a hearse

So many nights a vigil kept

With thoughts of my sweet lover fresh

I can’t forget the feel of flesh

Though I forget when last I slept

For how my lover haunts my sleep!

A sprinkling voice like summer rain

With lips that left each unseen stain

No tears can wash those stains so deep

As the small shimmer fast approached

I asked if it was forged by smiths

Who dwelled with dregs and with my fifths

In marshy nights so often broached

The only answer I received

Came from the shadows of the morn

In such a morn where silence born

Is but silence for the bereaved

Perhaps my lover came that dawn

The shimmer springing to and fro

Though what it was I shall ne’er know

For in a blink, the shimmer was gone

he laughs at Her joke, and She laughs as well

A joke She learned just last Friday

A joke He had told- the man for whom She had set aside Her ring

She looks away

She can't look at him

She can't look at Him

She can't laugh anymore