Sitter At Windows. Poem by Terry Collett

I am a sitter at windows, said Lucia;
I am a thinker of sad thoughts, a gazer
at stars and moon and the bright hot
afternoon sun. My thoughts taunt me

like bullying children, they repeat
words and images and strings of verbal
abuse like repetitive vomit. I sit at
the window with folded arms, my bum

numb on the window ledge, my eyes
peering through the netted curtains,
taking in the sights, the people, the cats
and dogs, the cars and buses, the odd

cyclists, the women pushing prams,
children crying at the side. I see and
know my childhood ghosts, the locked
doors, the no supper nights, the starving

rumblings of an empty stomach, words
bellowed through the doors by angry
parents. I am one who stares from windows,
one who snoops through netted curtains,

taking in the sights, hearing imperfectly
the outer sounds, the stolen kisses and hugs
from teenage loves, the backyards fondles,
sex on the cheap, lives, loves, kisses and

holds. I see new moons, quarter moons,
half moons and full moons and the lunatic
surge pulls me in and pushes me out, my
moods change like the waves of the sea,

the deeps drowning me in depression,
the black dog's bark, thoughts of death
in a bath, slit wrists, over doses, hanging
behind a bathroom door like mother had,

eyes popping, tongue protruding. I think
of past loves, dream of what might have
been, the boys who came and went, the
ones who stayed and spoiled, the girls who

stayed the night for sensual sex or schoolgirl
kisses, of visits to an asylum before mother's
demise, the locked doors, the cruel cries and
lunatic laughter, the odd looking staff, the eyes,

the tongues, the finger gestures from closing
doors. I see the work of the gods in my daily
stares, the passing people on their way to death
or work or love or indecent sex with another's

love, or a child innocent as a flower's bud
plucked and pulled and brain washed by an
adult hand and tongue. I am one who sees
what's come to an end and what's sadly begun.