Locked Out

I once saw a young girl
place her hand on the
inside of a window,
staring out
as I watched from the sidewalk.
The girl was locked in
and I was locked out with
this world, my companion.
If it is putrid or lovely,
I would not know,
for the road stretched like
spangles of a sea anenome--I
knew of nowhere to be
and nothing to see.
The curtain shut,
swept into some desperate arms,
and her face dispersed in an
explosion of butterfly wings.
They left a faint shimmer.

As I faced a well-lit street in suburbia,
I felt the ghost
of a carriage skirt the
nearest corner, or the
presence of a lingering friend
sweep behind a birch tree;
I felt both in my fingertips.
Light erupts and lamposts are
all space and time,
and as the girl's feet, buoyant
and filled with bounce, moved against
the plushness of a warm carpet,
I had to tear through the unforgiving
bark of my own roots,
growing into the frozen ground.

This night is mine in a
feather bed I frequently
share with my imagination.
I am both free and contricted unto myself.