The Man With His Back To The Room

The Woman In The Window

wears white & weeps blue tears down her thin cheeks & in her silver hair she’s a nest of chickadees &

around her neck from a silver chain a miniature black cage
where a white cricket lives &

in her heart there’s a hole that has never been filled & in her mouth words she will not speak but

chews them day by day until they are the color of white paste & will be her meal for that night.

The woman in the window cannot find her way in the dark & depends on the moon & the shadows it casts

to make a path for her to come & go & in the day she is motionless in her chair of asphodel & weeds &

looks to the horizon like a pilgrim anticipating a ship or a queen her lost love & when I see her, as I often do,

I wave & she smiles that rare smile & I see her teeth are true & her eyes turn bright as the darkest stars.