Shade

Clearly he now faced the
biological clock of his creative
libido. These walls of ambivalence
he couldn’t stare holes through that
kept him from even seeing
the potential he once thought he had.
Or maybe–and this was comforting–
maybe it was just seasonal depression.
Light hit the peephole in the front door
that fell on the edge of the breakfast
bar. He grabbed his sunglasses.
There was a long scratch in the
silver mirror that reflected the faces
of everyone who looked at him, through
which, he suspected, they might see
him.
Out on the sidewalk, sun on his back, he stopped
where a small green weed had pushed itself up
through the concrete. The swan necked stem
bowing around and down towards its root. It
started by bending toward itself, mouth closed
on the gold glory it was making, shut up and
stewing.
He stood there a while, casting shade
longer than himself under the whirr of
lawnmowers he couldn’t see without a cloud
in the sky, waiting
for something to happen.