Window Widow

I pass by my window at the darkest point of night.

I see her in black and white film.

She practices grief as elegantly as she danced

In a youth I heard sonnets about.

Those sonnets poured from the mouth of a marked man

Whose blood dried black on the cobblestone below.

I never saw tar spill out to dead silence

Broken by a baby wailing in the distance.

His corpse hangs out to dry.

It flaps in the wind by clothespins.

I wonder if she believes in the sun beating him

Until the color returns to his cheeks.

His stench hangs thick at the back of my throat.

I forgot what he smelled of in life,

But she lights a candle,

Cinnamon candy melting into the mouth of Fall.

She lights it with swollen joints

And moves with the clouds.

They’re so languid in their synchrony,

I wonder if her sunken face is going to bring rain.

The carnations on the windowsill match her eyes,

Her nose,

The lipstick on her teeth.

She blinks once and looks down at the busy street,

How it blooms under her bowed back.

Like always, she never looks at me,

but I light an incense stick,

Put on a record,

Retire for the night…

I see her shadow spin like a music box piece.

I smile.

It’s the same subtle smile he gave before saying,

“You’re just the moon over the seaside, aren’t you?”