from page to glass & back

there is a spot on the window i cannot rub off. i grip my pen too hard and push its ink too deep, page needled with my failed attempts to think. outside, i watch two obedient dogs receive exactly two treats each. there is a single decrepit bike locked up at the last rack outside the yarn bombed rainbow. a young woman enters & exits wearing aquamarine shoes and i think that may be the only encounter i will have this winter with that color. and then the man from miami walks in & sits down at the other end of the counter, his outfit alternating purple with red. just as i think the street's deserted, it is not. i notice three young adults waiting at the bus stop, each holding a bright white to go cup as they board the white bus beneath the sky's stacks of pillowed clouds. sharp cold cuts the canvas hard, frisks the world down until its solid. not much roams in the breeze and not much is released by its breath except any warmth you might have been carrying. we always say breath taken, but why not swapped? a serious man suddenly appears, but i do not admit his gruff gaze. a young man wearing a mauve backpack ambles up the hill as a young woman in a long, leopard print coat walks past with her gesticulating boyfriend who carries a coal black guitar case slung on his back. head down, pushing my pen across the page, i can feel her curiosity caress me as i look up and exchange warm smiles through the cool glass. sometimes these windows keep us apart and sometimes they allow a gentle glimpse. it suddenly strikes me how strange it must seem to sit here summoning words by a window, allowing both the glass & the page to clasp my inner world with the rest.