Timelessness

The visitor opens the window
To see the colors of the outside world
But the curtains are drawn.
She left the door unlocked
So matters would be simple
She thought.
Is it three?
A sun ray catches speckles of dust
Floating in the yet-to-be-filled
Container of his thoughts
As he drinks the last of his morning
Vodka tonic
With a twist.
Or is it twelve?
He'd like it to be seven
 But she asked him to wait until two.
She hears the chimes from the room inside
Where dark corners blur with the earth tone yellows
Of a forty-watt bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling.
"I interrupt this program," he mumbles.
He reads the article again
In the Sunday paper brought on Friday.
It's about a letter
Found years later
Between a chimney and a wall…
Received, lost and never read,
Yet sealed.
Next to a story about changing weather patterns,
The headline screams:
"Lovers reunited after fifty years"
He was asking her to wait until two
But she came at ten
Although he preferred seven.
"Poor bastard," he murmurs.
"She loved you."

©2010  Alain Millon