nighttime nostalgia

nighttime nostalgia                       Brooke DiGia

 

from my window on the

39^th floor, I see everything:

 

overcrowded bars, couples

with love and the promise of a future

swirling in their eyes.

 

apartment rooms, each lit,

each its own world, a universe

with messy orbits and stars

bookshelves and settees

enough gravitational pull to draw you in

towards a welcome that will never come

oh, the longing,

it’s the lifeblood

squirming in the pit of my stomach,

reaching out through the skin

with a taut hand.

 

drivers ripping through the bisque-like night,

racing towards the ineffable                            elsewhere.

they motion to be joined, but

speed so fast irises have a difficult time

keeping track all at once.

 

sometimes there will be someone

waving towards a friend in the people-filled distance.

they will join, hand-in-hand,

walk off to a café table--

I can almost feel the ripening warmth

of someone’s hand in mine

hear the conversations below

if I wasn’t so far up.