Dreamily walking
with a warm evening sun
past windows where
her soft, worn face reflects —
Her steps slow to notice:
How her hair, streaked
early with grey —
Her eyes, lined about
with now distant lovers
(each carefully gone
among circles there)
And her quiet dignified mouth —
Almost to say, “How much
of life is left these days.”
Feeling with this spring evening:
The hurried sidewalk, lights all coming on;
These windows full for viewing, as
children, once, on tip-toe
pressing flat noses
to peer at such treasure . . .
“Oh,” she reflects
a moment long
on her life before
the trembling glass;
Long enough to glimpse
some other, fatal room uncertain
on the pane’s other side
When a car
gone suddenly from control
Presses her there in a shatter —
As if she were reflection merely
and then nothing more.
~jwl
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1997 ?