Sidewalk Poem #4

Exterior street, New York City - Night

Someone like The Past walks in,
sits down beside me. The moon blazes
slowly, a burning ship
in its last hour. I try to talk
to the woman inside me
who will not let me sleep.

There is a drink in my hand.
My reflection in the window pane
is small. My face is the face I have seen
in movies, in the middle
of the night, asking, Where Have I Been?

-Jason Shinder, from Every Room We Ever Slept In, 1993.

[Photo by Weegee. Img Tom Sutpen.]