From His Bedroom, the Boy Watches

From His Bedroom, the Boy Watches

The boy stands at the window
as men parade past in suits
& ties, in a hurry to be inside
with other well-dressed men.
He leans forward, small shadow
looming to the edge of the sill, & takes
a deep breath. Sucks in his stomach
& breathes slowly out. Each morning

he does this. Each morning
he stands at this glass edge, this place
where the insides of his world meet
their limit, & he feels in his chest
something he does not quite
recognize: a kind of spiraling
downward, the sense that someone
has pulled a rubber stopper

from his body. He drags
one finger across the windowpane,
draws a maze in the dust.
Completes it. When the boy
makes puzzles for himself, the solutions
are always easy: enter at one end & exit
at the other. Between beginning
& end, he draws just one straight line.