The Window Whisperer

"Why are you whispering?" He said, leaning in. I tossed my head back and laughed from the throat, not from the belly, not from that place where he learned to live again. He smiled. It didn't take him long at all to learn to read my lips when mid-syllable the husky, raspy, cigarette lined words disappeared and no sound at all came out. Silence can be very, very loud when you're listening carefully. He listened very carefully.

I perch backwards,balancing on bare feet, on the porch bench. Stare through the wide open walls at the wind sneaking between the houses, at the squirrels changing lanes in 5:00 traffic on the broken fence top. "You're a bird, balancing on a wooden wire" he mumbles. The time has come. He knows it. I smile.

I reach over and push him out. It isn't me that's been caged. Caught in a wire meshed pre-fabricated world. His wings are working now. They were never broken, just taped together, leaving him motionless, toddling in circles, at the bottom of a wallpapered world. He turns and pleads with me, but I nudge him further...down the drive-way, the highway, into the very sunset we fingerpainted in the sky.

"Be free" I whisper. "That's what they made windows for".....