ANGER

There is a window in Tucson,
Though its like can be found
Anywhere the sun stills the street
In oppressive heat.
Its intent was to frame
The view from within, of houses in kind,
Of people you knew,

Of faces you waved to.

You could look out as they could look in
On evenings
When sidewalks were calm.

The window may still shine in its sill-
Coated by thin polymer gloss
So environmentally sound,
Which screens out the heat and the glare
And the idle glance from the strollers
Below-

As well as the angry man
With a rock in his hand.

You had just a momentary scare,
If you were there at all,
While I, caught in the reflection
Like a hothouse fly,
Still struggle with the oily whir of wings
In the middle of my dreams at night.

You know my face beyond the glass-
Twisted outside the door of your shop,

Stony on a courthouse bench,
Screaming in traffic or sputtering at the counter-
It’s a face to be shrugged at,
To throw that rolling eye glance
With an unspoken smile
To anyone normal nearby.

It’s a face beset by naiveté,
An embarrassment to be locked out-
It’s the customer cheated,
The clerk belittled,

The mother insulted,
It’s the old man dismissed,
The child not on the list.

Its all of us- even you
Behind your shade of irony.
You, smarter than the rest,
Stuck with smug smile,
Your shuttered soul sealed
Against belief

I’d redeem you to save myself,

For all the unshattered glass
Mocks the reflection there.
My face mingles
With the others made to remain.
We will multiply
As if caught in funhouse mirrors,
And lose depth with the dusk
Of each receding day,
As if one rock would not
Make us real and rotting.