It’s 5 AM and the streets are quiet.

I park my car by a corner-shop and pause to search for change.

Passing me, in a crab-like walk, is a man.

His head bobs and lolls as he shuffles down the street.

Drunk this early?

Or drunk from the night before?

I can’t tell.

But there is something poetic about his walk.

It echoes groans from a dark world

-a world of despair, dismay and loss

-where many sorrows are drowned repeatedly.

I watch him weave along the sidewalk

-oblivious to the gentle wind.

I find my coins and hurry in to buy some water.

As I drive off to work, I watch him in the rearview mirror.

He leaves patterns in his wake across the street.

© Vivian Zems

Poets United #496

#NarrativePoetry