Fog diffuses the first light of dawn. The street hangs in sleepy silence but for the song of a lone lark, anxious for daybreak. Wishing daybreak could be delayed, the young lover edges forward with some hesitation, then pauses at the doorstep, brows knit and thumbs rolling over one another. Idle, teetering on stiff toe caps in fretful anticipation, the lover inhales and raises a palm to the cracked-paint door. Love would answer, but who knocks? Twenty-two years have passed in want of love requited, yet one would find the lover’s own fading spark has seldom reignited.
