Crossing

The dark circles under your eyes  

have been growing, like a damp stain 
on the ceiling of your face,
which if I’m honest has also started
to show cracks.
  

And I’m almost certain it’s because 
you’re tired, like an unloved house,
or a hotel whose laughing guests left long ago.
But I can’t rule out violence, or its promise,
held above you, like the clenched fist,
and spittle flecked mouth of your
(possibly imagined) assailant.

And though I only see you, when our paths cross,
not quite daily, in the cemetery, where squirrels thrive
and mock the dead with their frisking
and ingenious hiding of winter nuts,
I still want to ask you to put down those tattered bags;
the ones you carry, and which appear to be stuffed
with important books.

I might even offer to take those bags,
at least as far as the bus stop,
if I thought it might lighten 
those darkening circles,
and throw open your shutters
illuminating the walls you’ve put up,
or had put up for you.

If I thought those walls even hoped for paint,
or wanted once again to echo,
laughter, and that you would not
be afraid of such largesse,
then yes, I would help you.

But like most of us who hurry for the station
stuffed with self-important news,
I lack the imagination.