Across the Alley

She says she loves the moments when she can forget
to be her and instead remember,
sometimes too much, sweet dreams and vistas
that other times appear
in a magazine or on television
or in someone else's eyes.
But those moments when she loses
track of time and self, they are more than all that
because they are real,
even through a window-view,
and leaning out the window is its own poison
just like suffocation.

And he says he loves the moments when he can share
his heart and soul
with another who returns them
better than they were,
with another who breathes more than air - she breathes
the soft flesh of dreams both to be and not
and is not afraid of suffocation -
and he is ready to give her his breath anyway.

They speak across the alley,
smiling across the way through opposing windows.
Their hearts seem pinned to clothespins
sliding on the line from one to the other, like notes
or clean clothes. They sometimes see the blur of traffic
passing by, or faceless people, the mailman, but mostly at these times
they see one another.
Still, sometimes they see the door,
beneath its awning always lit.

~bsower