The Front Window

The Front Window

don’t look out that front window
it only shows the yard, the two
old barrels full of dirt and flowers
that haven’t bloomed in six years

don’t look out that window at the
parking lot behind St. Mary’s, the shadows
looming there from Sundays past
and the nightmares you prayed away

don’t look beyond those curtains
where Freddie McHale’s T-bird used
to rumble waiting for you, a ring
in his pocket, silver lost and gone

don’t look beyond the wallpaper of
this room, your childhood bed, then
your grandmother’s before she died,
and now yours again, yellow and silent

don’t look out that front window at
Phillip’s Street, the places it could lead
but won’t, the hopes it once offered but
no longer can, the streetlight flicking on

don’t look out there, you whisper in the night
you had a chance to make it right and now
the walls hum with age as you close your eyes
and dream of a Nassau that no longer exists

Author: James Duncan

Photo: Kai Oberhäuser on Unsplash

First published in the collection "Nassau" (2024) by James Duncan