There is an opening in the wall,
covered in glass, and from it I see
smokers and garden variety teenagers
pass through the fence, through the hole,
where once I learned not to look down,
away to the gazebo and the lake, to
scrawl graffiti across the wood – Call
for a good time, Mary heart John fuheva, all the same
old jazz to be painted over and tattooed again in a month,
the circle of life retold through primer and permanent marker.
Walkers stroll past, holding hands, leashes, supermarket bags
of discount pop, heading home or away or a third place,
halfway between home and the far off lands. They don’t know I watch
them, behind venetian blinds, looking
up from my magazine to the outward appearances of other lives.
Rain falls, the snow or sun beats hot,
I can’t leave, but I can sit, silent, waiting,
all things to come in time, but
that bike hasn’t rode past in three years, maybe it’s time
to shutter up the windows.


But there’s still so much to see.