Window

 

Your eyes, child, in the window: the steady gaze
focused on nothing special, it would seem,
unless that chestnut in the day’s last sun,
as though you wouldn’t really dream of it
yet liked to think the candle’s inner mist
would light the coming dark. Something of her
in that, her hidden self a wistful look.
More human yours and yet you stir dead love.

Reflections cross the pane but not your face,
and mine will never touch you as they pass;
my gangling matchstick man a trace of sun
no more to you across the grass. Yet, child,
your soft focus already blends out hers –
my love, you make the darkness personal.

from Edge to Edge: New and Selected Poems (Anvil, 1996), copyright © Peter Dale 1996, used by permission of the author and Anvil Press Poetry Ltd.

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