The elderly neighbors across the way
leave their TV on all night.

I have been up at 4 a.m.
for a drink of water, or its opposite,
and I have seen the blue-white flicker
through their shades.

They may be dreaming of grassy knolls in Ireland,
or dancing on clouds, dress-rehearsing the afterlife,
while reruns of Starsky and Hutch
flash against their eyelids.

It is their night light, comforting noise,
cold companion, a phosphorescent ghost
haunting the shadows of their walls,
playing in the dark like an unknown child,

shape-shifting to a newscaster’s face
when the sun breaks in,
and they both wake again to today.

10/09/2001

Posted on 10/09/2001
Copyright © 2024 Bruce W Niedt