Co/veil/ent

There is a woman who comes to my window, once a day, every day, like clockwork. She stands and she stares, pointing fingers at my family and the misappropriation in the placement of our things.

I cannot hear the words she shouts or know the anger she must feel, helpless to communicate the error of our ways.

When I go out to shoo her, as I've done on tired days, she is gone before I make it to the door.

When I act oblivious to all her futile rage, she takes it out on panes of glass 'til brittle bones pound sore.

Today, I think, I'll let her in; offer her a tea, and ask her if she'd like to stay for dinner. I see her at the grocery store, wearing dark sunglasses, and pushing her cart into piles of fruit with wreckless hope.

I'll wait, I think.

This afternoon, she does not come.

Nor the next, or after.

I never see her at the store again.

But once a day, every day, like clockwork I imagine myself standing at a curtain made of stone: Obsidian, opaque, and menacing as everything I've wondered at but never ascertained.

M