Carpenters hammer below the shaded window. I rise from bed, light a cigarette, and walk to the window. The stony street displays the stillness on which buildings stand. It isn’t possible to be young again, yet a common light bathes the cobblestones. Time is the fire in which we all burn. See this windowsill? It shines with its lip of snow. White pieces drift past the cold pane, the smallest color of the small hours. Early morning has begun without us, and yet we are here. What am I now that I was not then? Somewhere down the street a car coughs, stutters, ignites. The day will fall of its own weight. The mystery of beginning, resumes.
~
Gary Percesepe is the author of eight books, most recently The Winter of J, a poetry collection published by Poetry Box. He is Associate Editor at New World Writing. Previously he was an assistant fiction editor at Antioch Review. His work has appeared in Christian Century, Maine Review, Brevity, Story Quarterly, N + 1, Salon, Mississippi Review, Wigleaf, Westchester Review, PANK, The Millions, Atticus Review, Antioch Review, Solstice, and other places. He resides in White Plains, New York, and teaches philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx.