Slowly the sun sets for the basement-dwelling apartment super.

It’s goodbye to the broom,
Goodbye the ladder he once climbed,
Goodbye the tangle of wires in boxes too small.
Goodbye the solitary days and empty nights.

Farewell the wooden sticks he skillfully crafted to hide the sins of ill-fitting joints.

Miss he will not the forlorn potted plants abandoned by innumerable souls who moved on, leaving bits of their lives behind for him to haul off or scrub into oblivion.

Such a thankless task it is to provide roof, wall and floor for the city-dweller, though once he did love it—and for many seasons it sustained him well.

Soon he will not look back. Soon a new season will dawn for him. The sunsets will never be the same.