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Mr. Walker



Each morning, Mr. Walker awakes
to the sound of Mr. Beckham
pulling out of his driveway
at 7:45am.
Then he hears the distant noise
of a flagpole clanging
and a school bell ringing.

At 8:00am exactly,
every single morning
Mr. Walker carefully
rolls himself out of bed
and struggles to his feet.
He slips on a robe
and walks into the next room,
pausing at a dresser
with a grand vanity mirror,
before taking each concentrated step
down the stairs.

He fetches the paper,
sits on his easy chair
and reads the headlines
with a look of brief interest,
tinged with disgust.
Shaking his head,
he plucks out the weather report
and then the comics,
Beatle Bailey,
Crankshaft,
and snickers to himself.

After a bath
and a choosing of clothes,
Mr. Walker stands
before a mirror.
Picking at his disheveled hair,
bushed and tousled like the
chaos of a blizzard,
he works in hair tonic
installs his teeth
glances over an outdated bus schedule
(even though he knows he'll walk)
and double checks the weather report,
layers himself appropriately
and sets out for the day.

Another cold one, Mr.Walker
he would hear a voice say.

In his slow motion life,
Mr. Walker maintains the same itinerary.
Like an insect missing a leg,
he unhurriedly makes his way up the street
to a crosswalk where he waits patiently
for a clearing in the hissing traffic.
And takes a moment to catch his breath
at the other side.

Mr. Walker visits his favorite coffee shop.
He greets them by name
and a
"Hello Mr. Walker!" makes his day.
But after that he is left alone at his table
where he remains for hours sipping his
coffee that is always ready for him
by the time he sits down.
On Fridays, he orders food.
That is always ready too.

Mr. Walker then heads to the grocery store,
meanders up and down the aisles
until he finds the deli that he has
always gone to.
Flirts with the meat lady,
ponders awhile,
and walks off with his olive loaf
as he always had.

On the way home,
Mr. Walker will stop by
Hal Knox's place,
where the two of them
sit in lawn chairs in the yard
and discuss the 5-day forecast,
baseball,
and whether or not
Mable's grandkid came by to
mow her lawn last weekend.

Then Mr. Walker will rise again,
stretch his arms, retrieve his olive loaf
and set off on his journey for home
just down the street.

Mr. Walker mails many letters,
to his daughter,
to old friends,
and sometimes to his late wife
where he keeps them in an old
shoebox beneath her bed.
Every now and then a letter
to an old friend
returns to him.
He tosses it into the trash
and scribbles out their names
in his threadbare address book.

He flips through the television
in the evening time.
The news,
Gilligan's Island,
and for a brief moment
he listens to the scrambled set
of the adult channel
before switching it off
and ascending the stairs.

Mr. Walker slips off his clothes
and tucks himself in beneath
a warm blanket.
Before his foolish thoughts of death,
and his moon hidden away by blinds
he reminisces.
His days in the service,
His daughter's wedding,
And as a child,
digging up crawfish in the creek.

He wonders every night
if this is his last,
with nothing left to look forward to,
a world around him that will not change.
But none of this seems
to bother Mr. Walker at all,
he still smiles just the same.

Occasionally,
in the middle of the night,
he'll walk across the room
to a jewelry box and retrieve
a pair of earrings,
cup them in his hands
and hold them to his heart.
Through a timeless sigh
that takes forever,
his bushy white eyebrows,
fold over his eyes,
just like an angel’s wings.

All of his beautiful memories
form into a single drop
that slowly scales down his face,
right down to his quivering,
never-ending,
smile.

Mr. Walker.
He would lay back down.
Close his eyes.
And slowly drift off
like an old antiquity
beneath attic sheets.
Stepping one step
closer each night
to the sweet welcoming
that has long awaited
and will soon receive him.

Goodnight, Mr. Walker