written By
This one window stages the little girl two doors down, alone
in the grass with a purple-casted hand and a pink ball.
She tosses one, two, three, four against the stucco wall.
Could I catch her and say, though your dad’s temper is your only friend, you’re
not alone?
This same window stages the depressed next-door neighbor,
who slips across the stage at day’s end,
whose texts read as a script: I need a friend.
I respond: I’m here, hoping brevity echoes despair.
This window stages the middle-aged man down the street
whose labored steps are often pitied by the able.
I don’t know his tragedy but I know mine, and I want to whisper these
syllables: Your step is noble, triumphant—a feat.
For life’s tragedy is when you see it but you do not feel it,
when empathy’s wind drums against the window:
Open. Though the night is dim, it’s still moonlit;
though the chorus is faint, our words cannot go unspoken.
