Smeared with fingerprints and
Caked with dust embedded in
decaying brick walls of old stores.
Each surmounting year with scores
Of hopeful children, smearing
Their runny noses on the cold glass
Splashed with color, painting the sunlight
Looking down on mourners
and celebrators of life
Dimming the bright
Mirrored giants keep us out
We aren’t supposed to know
Shielding us from cubicles and suits
Forcing wanderers to look up from below.
It’s a screen playing out
The realest of stories
Funny, like silent films
When the punch lines were literal;
People silently talking, walking about.
Cover it up with curtains or blinds
But when I’m forced behind,
I still would rather be inside,
Or outside.
Blurred with screens or bars,
Abandoned and boarded up.
it keeps me out, and in.
I can’t walk through it;
It’s nothing like a gateway
But there’s nothing I’d rather
Be behind to waste the day
Unlocking the constraints
Shattering the glass
Letting in, out
The opportunity to pass.