For no perceptible reason

Paris, or Fredericksburg

There were days the sky hardly noticed us. We moved
beneath it as if we had no business doing so; small things
performing small things for even smaller reasons.

Behind it all, a kind of silent narration that one catches
only between words, the ends of them, the beginnings,
but little of their middling narrative essence informing.

It might have been Paris, or Fredericksburg, the days
slipping around us like rushing rivers of time as we
took sustenance from wind and screeching cicadas.



Who you are does not matter for these lines. Neither
does who I am. We may be any of numberless forgotten
people who thought life might be a coat worth returning.

Some day, I suppose, I will do just that—walk into some
small shop on some side street I’ve never been on before,
open the door and say, “Here’s your coat back, thank you.”

There are days the sky hardly notices us. We move
beneath it as if we were born to do so; small things
performing even smaller things for no perceptible reason.

Joseph Gallo
October 12, 2010