The Window
       

You could be anywhere, almost anywhere at all,

In almost any city & almost any abandoned life — but
You are here, standing again outside the house where she
Lived, looking up at her third floor apartment with its square
Corner tower & narrow windows, where you'd sit
At night, reading at a small table while she painted her huge,
Savage canvasses in the bare white living room she'd
Cluttered with drop sheets, buckets & brushes, scattered tubes
Of oils. Sex always smelled like espresso mixed with turpentine,
Like night-booming jasmine & Coltrane. Of course, you could be
Anywhere, but you are here, not even knowing if she's still
Living there, it's been so many years now since you
Walked out on her & left for the trenches of Manhattan —
A shadow steps first into & then out of the light, the soft
Brilliant rectangles of light framed by those corner windows . . .
& then, there's nothing except your emptiness, & the shadow
That might or might not have been hers. You could be anywhere.

You could be home.

after James Welling

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Copyright © 2014 David St. John All rights reserved
from The Window
Arctos Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission