Destiny

[vagantes]

Last night standing outside in the dark street,
I saw a girl at the window looking out,
And I looked at the girl and into the brilliant room
As though we were in love and about to meet;

But this is not a romance, not the sort for readers,
Who curl up snugly in their chairs and imagine
Someone standing outside in the street,
Seeing a girl at a window looking out,

Because being the writer of this poem
I can look to both sides of the glass at once,
And know that is a fond delusion
To want to bring them both together.

The girl looks at herself trying to look
Beyond herself and half become another,
Dreaming that her lover might see her so,
Outlined in the light from the room,

While outside a stranger in the cold and dark
Looks at the girl in her brightly-lit room
Seeing clear the hopeless desire, without future
To become part of a life beyond understanding.

So, I moved away from the bright window
And turned into the cold and the dark,
Writing this poem which would never be read by her
To remember a girl in a window, looking into the night.