'Hope' by T. Love

Even if the man outside had been waving, I was too weak to wave back or even smile. Actually he was wiping my windows. Over the weeks I grew used to his singing and his ring-tone, his shadow passing over me several times a day. I’m 6 floors up. He had no ropes, no platform, no ladder, only a wife who did his accounts and a no-good son he moaned about to everyone. I wanted him to stop, too many birds were crashing against the glass. I thought he’d never go.

Then with the first frost he waved to me for real and rose to join a vast flock of migrating angels. I could see in his eyes how reluctant he was to leave me. I wasn’t sad. I knew he’d only go if he was sure I wasn’t going away. I knew that in spring he’d try to return to the same spot. He left his fingerprints on the glass. I can’t wash them off.