Love Through a Plate Glass Window

by Dave Rowley
poets.org
Honorable Mention, March 2008
Judged by Fleda Brown


I visit after closing time each night.
The dress she’s wearing is faint, pink mist
draped over sculpted bones.
The fugitive turn of shoulder carves
a lucid arc towards me, awakens
the bloodline at my centre where tracks
of blue, silver, red reflected traffic
swoon and shudder through me.
Tonight the display lights hinge her lip
in a pout. Dear plaster cast
of someone long-lost and pale,
your mouth is a smudged afterthought
whispering secrets, your monologue silent
but discernable: messages slipped in coded lines
of designer clothing. Sometimes I’m there
when they undress you (I never dare to look).
The blind push and pull of my desire rubs
me wrong as crush hour crowds dissipate
leaving this thick window as our chaperone.
The wind blows cold here on the street.
Back home I fall dreamless, overcome
by grey plastered ceiling
as the grandfather clock hollows out the hallway.
Mornings find me drained, my face in the bathroom mirror
kabuki white, inching through fog.