Hour

The morning after lies like garbage along the East River, discarded fireworks and remains of picnics scattered along the sides of early bird runner paths. I send my mother real estate listings for the upstate and we drool over acreage, over a life spent with grass between your bare feet. Little inklings of story unearth themselves while I try desperately to dig through the quicksand of work around my neck, this is the great deceit of aging. It was never wrinkles, they just pretended it was to distract you. 

Everything is a ruse if you let it. 

You allow yourself to stare out of the window for just a brief moment, but it is enough for the whims to take hold. In the trees across the street you see fairied creatures come alive, watch the leaves unfurl into playgrounds, hear songs of unknown lands sing themselves against the backdrop of a Manhattan that doesn't feel real by comparison. 

Everything still lives under the leaves, under the snow. Everything is still in hibernation, waiting for a little attention, waiting for you to make the space for the unordinary to come alive again.