The Soft-Spoken Witness Poem by Abby Koning

who-
a man with tinted-glass eyes
and shuttered lids with black ledges
and all the sadness of the world
etched in the sagging
lineaments
of his tired countenance

what-
a senseless death, a cat
rubbing its face against the man’s
hairy leg crisscrossed with veins pumping
sluggishly
or not at all
meowing, meowing, purring,
stretching, laying down
closing out the night with its own shutters

when-
last night, this morning, today
tomorrow, at dawn, at evening
within time or outside the reach
of the clock’s hands
lingering somewhere on the
outskirts
of existence

where-
an ancient porch, a rocking chair
a ramshackle house
a solitary location, a garden
overgrown with weeds
paint peeling, and boards covered
with thick, ropey branches of wisteria

how-
an early morning waking up,
a bed containing sheets rumpled
but only in one corner, a blinking
into the garish sunlight
a stretching, a scrambling of eggs and
a drinking of coffee
a glance at the newspaper, a retiring
to a typewriter in a cluttered attic where
light streamed through the windows, making
dancing patterns before his eyes,
(patterns that hinted at some unspoken
unthought feeling, more substantial
than he and all his dreams)
a finishing of a manuscript,
two words: The End
scribbled in hasty lettering from a fountain
of blue ink
a private celebration, a toast that involved
no clinking of glasses
(…and what is the sound of one glass clinking?)
from a dusty bottle of champagne
later, a doing of dishes
one lonely glass, drops of amber-colored liquid
clinging to the inside
one plate, sticky eggs holding tight to the ceramic
(and isn’t that all i am? a sticky egg on the plate of this earth?)
bubbles washing out and in and out again
water washing out and in and out
his thoughts washing out and in and out
a shattering of the glass, slipping wetly
from shaking hand
no broom to be found, a disaster
of unmeasured proportions!
a shard of glass in barefeet, leaving a thin
red trail as he climbed the stairs to the attic
where manuscript sat on the table
title page up
(“A Tribute to Solitude”)
and glaring at him, mocking him
a rereading of the final page
followed by a quick trip of that very page
through a paper shredder
(for really, had i anything at all to say?
and really, had i any talent to say it?)
and the shreds through the fire
of his lighter
a shortening stack of paper
diminishing to nothing but ashes
(a thought: even as i shall)
a sprinting back to the kitchen
a snapping in his mind
as he stared at the one plate
and the glittering fragments
of the one glass
a seizing of one particularly sharp
fragment
a stumbling to the rocking chair…
a closing of the shutters.

why-
nobody knows but the wisteria.