Prayers, Portraits, Post-Its (15)

Dusk

A skinny old sun-bronzed man lights a cigarette on his deck and carries a green watering can down to his tomato plants. Yuki has said she used to watch me from her window, just as I now look down and watch the old man lifting his leaves, checking for mites. She never said, she didn't need to, but I would have been sitting on this green plastic loveseat, drinking coffee or wine, occasionally reading, more often barbecuing sausages or burgers. I saw her in her window, one floor up in the building across from mine, when I first moved in. A slim figure, usually in a white T-shirt, standing at her sink or tending her plants on her window sill. Then I stopped seeing her. That was because she had started watching me, I realized later. I was puzzled at the time.