It begins small:
a call unanswered.
Dinner plans postponed.
Your brother’s birthday
came and went.
You turn in
one night without
brushing your teeth
and dream like a window
the instant before
it breaks. You wake
and it is broken.
You go back to sleep.

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Jared Harel’s poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Tin House, The Southern Review, The Threepenny Review, Shenandoah and Ecotone. He lives in Queens and plays drums for the NYC-based rock band The Dust Engineers. His website is www.jaredharel.com.