Home
It was a rainy night
In San Francisco
I’d just moved from LA
Was still finding my way
In a new life
I was tired
Returning from work
There in the winter’s dark
A few blocks from home
It began coming down hard
And I needed to turn left
At a four-way stop
Like a vision
Between sweeps of wiper blades
I saw a couple sitting on a couch
In the middle of the intersection
An end-table beside them
And a lamp…that was lit
They were reading magazines
In the rain
I slowly edged around them
My turn signal lighting their faces
I stopped, rolled down the window
They looked up from their magazines
As if I had interrupted a quiet evening
“Is this, performance art?” I asked
“…Uh-huh,” said the girl
Then she got back to her magazine
I knew in that moment
That I was home
Steven Meloan‘s fiction has appeared in SOMA Magazine, the Sonoma Valley Sun, Lummox Press, and Roadside Press, as well as at Litquake, Quiet Lightning, Library Girl, The Rapp Saloon Poetry Reading series, and other literary events. His short fiction collection, St. James Infirmary, was released in 2023 on Roadside Press, and a collaboration collection with his brother Michael, The Kind the Pharaohs Try, was released in 2024 on Naked Light Press. He is currently working on a collection of poetry. He is a recovered software developer, and a former busker in London, Paris, and Berlin.
