Windowpanes


There's a man in the windowpane. His poverty wears him like used clothing. His teeth and nails show signs of void and limbo. His huge hands choke out of simple habit. They inflate like lifeboats, regardless of season. His something to hold is bigger than a spaceship. He's there, but you're letting him.

This windowpane can't be quieted. It's intimate as twins. His grin simmers in an iron pot. Steam. That motherly scent of what you need. Now sisterly, soon across the radio line of hope. A rolling pin for the stars and police. This time he's letting you but it's different.

He wraps around himself like a shoelace. Advertises his misplacements in descending order. Rips a small piece of carpet like coupons for life. His shoes sigh in any number of languages. Arabic seems appropriate. Proverbs of how the coiled serpent strikes.

He coughs to hear the trains. Forty thoughts on how to sculpt a nude woman. But his hands. And with his elbows pointed as missiles, both late and early, he'll miss her anyway. Walk the children like dogs but there are no children. They've passed on like airplanes over church.

Contained in their own windowpanes, he warns himself like a cheap volcano. The clouds sideswipe his roof with animal's breath. He fiddles with the coffee maker, sinks into the couch. Penny immortality. How haunting to remind him this way. But how terrible not to.



P.M.


His discipline wakes moments before him.
It pours water for his pills then waits in silence.

A balcony, and doubt.
Chemistry, and doubt.
The guest, and doubt.

In a few years his blankets of doubt will be thick as snow. Whether he'll ever go home will depend on his will. The rest will fly away on crutches. He'll watch it from a balcony and drink vodka.

Another guest, and faith.
Symmetry, and questions.
Suffering, and authority.

His discipline does three sets of fifty push-ups then doesn't call his ex-wife. Her voice would be sandpaper anyway. She's just one of many ways. He half expects friendship from the post office.

And still he hasn't read
his darkest horoscope.



-Peter Schwartz


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