The Next Shot Was a Street

I had the TV on low

because I couldn't sleep.

Not really watching—just the noise,

the kind of company you keep

when you don't want company.

Some documentary. B-roll.

And then the sound.

Two seconds. The slow pull

of a zipper, and the shot

was already gone. Street. Reporter.

Rainfall somewhere. Numbers.

I sat there. Didn't alter

the channel. Held the remote.

The reporter's mouth was moving.

The sound was still in the room—

not fading, not improving,

just there. That was four days ago.

I've heard it since—a jacket zipper

in a grocery line, just someone

closing their coat, and a sliver

of it hit me. I stopped walking.

Cashier said the total. I said sorry.

Paid. Went out to the car.

Sat in it. The inventory

of what I remembered: the shot moving on,

the reporter's mouth, the remote.

I haven't turned the TV off.

I keep meaning to. I don't.