Window Swap

Let me swap your window view with mine.

Better yet, let me open a new window

anywhere in the world:

 

Swap my clouds with the widow Lotta

that delights in the sight of six boys skipping

on the edge of an Amsterdam canal

 

who then furtively disappear into

the dark wide open doors of the

Sex Palace Peep show across the street.

 

Swap my lonely rainy sky with Bess the

matronly Cotswold poet courting Badgers

to fight over tossed scraps of Savory Pie.

 

Swap my lulling dark with Akhenaten

gazing at the sacred African ibis as they

chant and soar over the Pyramids of Giza.

 

Exchange my blue with Jean Paul

watching yellow turn red to gray night

in time-lapse from his Cassis maison.

 

Barter my coffee for Rakesh’s tea

and his Hindi copy of the Yajur Veda like

a still life posed on a blue  window ledge.

 

Ransom unbargained Chiara’s Roman tableau

in red clay tiles surrounding a blood bell tower

beautiful enough for a young Da Vinci’s pastels.

 

Exchange breaths with Kiko as she panics

when a Tokyo bullet train convulses through,

a reminder of both our unstable lives,

 

until memories of Mary dancing in the

downpour of a Manhattan summer shower

fall through the hospitals, the last goodbyes—

 

until there I am, a scared little boy

starring out my bedroom window

awaiting dawn for another chance

 

to splash in the blue blue kiddie pool,

walk in the un-paned grass, shouting

to the white sky that follows me always.