Look Out the Window

Billy Collins wrote: "...the poets are at their windows." And so I looked out the window and wrote what I saw.



The couple crossing the street is hot. Everyone is hot, to tell the truth, but they look especially hot. He is balding and just starting to cross that line into overweight. These facts are emphasized by two things: The top of his head is glaring red (he ignores that he is balding, an admission of becoming his father, by never wearing a hat or putting on sunscreen), and his blue buttondown strains at the seams. Even more unseemly, there are sweat spots under his arms, down his back, where his shirt is tucked into his black pants.

But as he turns to catch his wife's hand, they smile and the world cools around them. They are here together, forgetting for just the few moments it takes to cross the street that niggling sense that life hasn't turned out how they planned.