He pulls my hand
and I stumble up the stairs
holding two backpacks, four books
and a lunchbox full of old toy cars,
nearly tripping
but landing instead on the second floor landing.

The blinds covering the window in front of me
split slightly,
just enough
for me to see her smiling eye watching me.

I don't know her name
and she doesn't know mine.
we've never said anything real to each other.
we know nothing about each other
other than that she spends a lot of time there
at her grandparents house,
speaking Portuguese, Spanish and English
and listening to Spanish rap on the balcony
loud enough to hear through the floor
of the apartment I only spend six days in a month
and over the occasional fight between my family.

That's all she knows of me;
my fleeting ghost walking with my brother past their window
thirty or so times a month,
talking
but almost inaudibly, and never to her.
wish i knew her better
than as the eye peeking through the blinds



©Brandon Webb
2012