purple bowl in the window

purple bowl in the window he didn’t like city buses spouting black smoke, park benches overtaken by pigeons, or towns with straight, one-way streets. he didn’t care for department stores featuring girls with plastic smiles or big-nosed politicians smoking short, fat cigars. he was raised in the south and chewed words longer than originally intended. he didn’t like lemons or the purple bowl in the window of the hardware store. monday through friday was sufficient and then the weekend came— complete with the quiet of silence. he could hear the void in his heart like a glass of undisturbed water… or the sound of the sun rising in the east. barren and hushed— the purple bowl in the window reminded him of his life— yet he could not hear the melody of the carnival. sometimes he dreamed of squeezing yellow lemons into the purple bowl but that would be fruitless; the bowl was hollow, the lemons bitter…just like tomorrow. @ tolbert