Through the Window

Toddler-tongue licking the frozen window
snow swirling into marshmallow icing
a storm of white swan feathers coating
the bare bones of the dormant crab apple tree.

Chicken pox, a dead bug on the glass, a
muddy green field, junior high ruffians
colliding saying things like I know you
are but what am I? and So’s your old man.

One in the morning, unable to sleep, hiding
red-faced behind the venetian blinds, shallow
breathing, spying next door on the college
dude flexing pecs and getting ready for bed.

Summer doldrums, watching the neighbors
paint, move in, bicker, mow grass, put out
pumpkins, string Christmas lights, park, lock
themselves out. I never asked their names.

Checking through the peephole for the
shifting cast of characters who have come
for the potluck, for New Year’s, for the
wedding, the housewarming, the memorial.

Gazing down twenty stories from my too, too
solid desk, contemplating retirement, a
fleeting thought to jump, how can so much of
the city be made of things I have never seen?

At worship seeing the sky through colored
glass barely listening to the prayers or the
sermon and suddenly struck by the question:
Is someone looking through the window at me?

Ill. Not with chicken pox. In bed, hand shaking
with effort but still unable to reach the string
to close the shade. Forced to watch the wind
challenge the trees and the resulting swirl of leaves.

About the Author
Brian Yapko is a lawyer whose poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Grand Little Things, Society of Classical Poets, Poetica, Chained Muse, Garfield Lake Review, Tempered Runes Press, Auroras and Blossoms, Showbear Family Circus, Sparks of Calliope, Iris Literary Journal and as a first prize winner in The Abstract Elephant. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.