Vibrations

Peering between the blinds I hear

A heavy rumble in the heavens as

Thick bundles of January snowflakes float lazily down

Covering Chicago in an intimate thick cover

of familiar white calm.

 

My small hands grasp a laundry basket

Full of clothes to be washed and

I cross paths in the courtyard with a neighbor

As she chatters away with her friend about

Stirring goodnesses in her life.

Right then I realize how strange it is that I

thrive so much

Upon the vibrations of other lives.

Suddenly lightning strikes and all of our eyes

grow round

Dark velvet sky liquifies into pale lavender

Little flakes of snow flutter on the backdrop of winter.

Everyone stops moving.

“Wow,” one of them says, her silhouette framed in

streetlight

“Was that really lightning? In a snowstorm?”

That’s when the thunder charges across the city

Shaking the glass in my apartment building

Along with the very bones in my feet.

Our breaths hang in the air like moments waiting

to be saved.

The girls turn and look at me. I can do nothing

but smile.

 

“Have a good night, out there, in this,” I say.

“Thank you,” they reply in unison. We laugh.

Sometimes I grow weary of trying to be that voice

Crooning over your shoulder about the grandeur of

small things

When I am actually no better than the boring

Son-of-a-bitch who happens to be doing laundry

On a goddamn Friday night.

But the laundry gets finished,

And I reward myself

With a warm drink.

It is good to be inside

Even if I am

By myself.