A Beautiful Day

Walking from the Metro on my now routine

job hunt, I feel only as relevant as a forgotten dream.

I turn at a corner

and my shadow overtakes me.

My phone drops on the pavement, shatters

into many dysfunctional pieces like my life.

I pass in front of a parked van and a homeless man

almost bumps into me from my blind side. A flock

of birds giggle from the top of a tree.

They sound like firecrackers on the 4th of July.

At the next turn a dog and a woman. One is walking

the other. I say hello and the woman smiles, squints

at the glistering sun, says it’s a beautiful day.

It isn’t.

The sun too shall depart when the night comes.