Aubade (November)

Lying awake before dawn, hearing the faint scratching of rain on the gutters, waiting for the first pale light of a winter morning to stretch across the floorboards, he feels the last traces of his dreams dissolve. A car rolls by on the wet street and he hears the damp thud of newspapers being deposited, one after another, into the driveways of the houses along the block. The sparrows have nothing to say.