A Dream in the Window

My dream is bashful, and yet it walks out among people, snapping a heel now and then. Like its owner, there's something eating at it, and you can hear the midnight knock on the radiator, again. The neighbor's foul: blinds pulled tight, door locked for good like a bunker's, no reprieve. She's at the mirror, dolled up, hip and bright, muttering to herself: — Believe, girl, believe. We'll pull it off… Pull on those tights! We'll paint our lips red as blood. We know who we are! He doesn't know who you are, but like you and me he dreams, over and over, of opening… at least a vent pane, at least half the shutters. Not for himself — for the light from outside. Even if sometimes stones fly in at her… And let the dream catch them at the window!