What she saw, it was better
than any TV, better even than
Marcus Welby and ever since
Quincy ruled that punk rock
music was the cause of death?
You can keep your fancy plots
and all of that mess
she said to the general public
from her window then pulled
her head back in just in time
for a quick breath

The TV stays on from habit
and anyway the sound it makes
even when the volume is off?
she can't explain its comforting
presence or how it feels like
an old friend who doesn't
criticize or ask for anything
ever or like a wife who was told
to shut the hell up long ago
and by some miracle she's
not said a single word since
like that, comforting and
silent and if she were real
instead of the electric air of
the TV set? well, our friend
would swear she's fat

(and also friendly, not a
smudge of malice)

Anyway the woman in the
window has had a lifetime
of that- malice, scorn, as each
year dropped off like a coin
in a purse with a hole

Stillborn

What an awful word

But there are moments
when life comes alive, not
so much in but always
outside

It's like waiting for her
favorite soaps

The TV shows the bloated face
of someone familiar, maybe
Rock Hudson or Doris Day
(she snickers who are they
kidding?) and she has never
met a single person who
came near to being that kind
of happy, she is certain
no one is that happy

Nonetheless she hears some
singing, sticks her head into
the breeze that carried the notes
to her- a skinny black woman
marches back and forth in the
park with an invisible baton
in her hand, belting out O
SAY CAN YOU SEE? WHAT
THE CRACK'S DONE TO
ME?

(yes, we can.)

The woman in the window
claps heartily while the one
in the park takes a bow
(O
WOW she heard me! both
of them think at the very
same time)

The park is full of action
just the other day she saw
one bag of laundry approach
another bag of laundry and
the first bag pulled out a gun
from one of his many pockets
while the second bag produced
what must have been money
and so one bag of laundry
sold a gun to another bag
of... I swear! she says
to Doris Day

And that's how it is any
old day, see? and how
much better it is than
TV?