A Day Like Any Other

Such insignificance: a glance at your record on the doctor's desk or a letter not meant for you. How could you have known? It's not true that your life passes before you in rapid motion, but your watch suddenly ticks like an amplified heart, the hands freezing against a white that is a judgment. Otherwise nothing. The face in the mirror is still yours. Two men pass on the sidewalk and do not stare at your window. Your room is silent, the plants locked inside their mysterious lives as always. The queen-of-the-night refuses to bloom, does not accept your definition. It makes no sense, your scanning the street for a traffic snarl, a new crack in the pavement, a flag at half-mast -- signs of some disturbance in the world because your friend, the morning sun, has turned its dark side toward you.