Every day something transforms into something else: given distance, the shush of window fans becomes applause, dawn's earliest gray is a television left on overnight, just one channel with two
birds performing. The blue of the pilot lights on the stove could be anything really-- will-o'-wisps, a night club at closing time. Bars of sunlight across the slatted wood floor are dotted to sign our names,
contracts that not everything will be dismantled despite cloud shadows wiping away the lines. See, a floor grained and cold, our brief spot marked: an old penny between the boards, applause, the channel turned off at last.
Tobias Seamon's first novel, The Magician's Study, will be released September 2004 from Turtle Point Press. Other work has appeared or is forthcoming in various publications, including 3rd Bed, Diagram, The Mississippi Review, Snow Monkey, and Smartish Pace. He lives in Albany, NY.
