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We Are Glass
Through the dusty windowpane of his waking eyes,
he saw her crying, and thought, as he moved to comfort her,
how well they once knew each other.
She'd been reading, papers from work spread on her lap,
across her legs, as if their bed was a briefcase broken open.
Her thoughts behind her glasses, narrowed.
In his mind, he'd drifted through his own workday for a while,
until thought itself had slipped away,
a glass darkening.
Then came dreams, memories of school.
Of a day when he'd held a prism up to a sunny window,
to watch it split the light into bars and streams of running color.
As he drifted in sleep, did she turn to notice him?
Reading in his face the memory of a young man and woman
from a time when it seemed light could enter into them so easily?
In his dream the window and prism
became stained glass,
adorned with images of an imagined heaven.
An angel embedded in the colored glass
stepped from the pane, kissed his forehead,
and then breathed into his mouth.
He awoke, to find his wife,
her papers pushed to the floor, glasses set aside,
kissing him gently, and crying.
Fresh from dream, he held her close.
Understanding, suddenly, who they were when the world quieted.
He watched her, stroking her hair, turning her face to look into her eyes.
In time her wistful sorrow seemed to ease, and she fell asleep beside him.
His own eyes remained open for a long while,
dust washed from the windowpane, by tears and light.
Through the dusty windowpane of his waking eyes,
he saw her crying, and thought, as he moved to comfort her,
how well they once knew each other.
She'd been reading, papers from work spread on her lap,
across her legs, as if their bed was a briefcase broken open.
Her thoughts behind her glasses, narrowed.
In his mind, he'd drifted through his own workday for a while,
until thought itself had slipped away,
a glass darkening.
Then came dreams, memories of school.
Of a day when he'd held a prism up to a sunny window,
to watch it split the light into bars and streams of running color.
As he drifted in sleep, did she turn to notice him?
Reading in his face the memory of a young man and woman
from a time when it seemed light could enter into them so easily?
In his dream the window and prism
became stained glass,
adorned with images of an imagined heaven.
An angel embedded in the colored glass
stepped from the pane, kissed his forehead,
and then breathed into his mouth.
He awoke, to find his wife,
her papers pushed to the floor, glasses set aside,
kissing him gently, and crying.
Fresh from dream, he held her close.
Understanding, suddenly, who they were when the world quieted.
He watched her, stroking her hair, turning her face to look into her eyes.
In time her wistful sorrow seemed to ease, and she fell asleep beside him.
His own eyes remained open for a long while,
dust washed from the windowpane, by tears and light.