backseat windows

as a child I would lock eyes with other kids

captive in the back seats of station wagons

hurtling down freeways

or slowrolling through clogged streets

 

I would lock eyes

 

trying for some kind of psychic connection

anticipating a future meeting

hoping that decades later

our eyes would remember a moment held between us

briefly as a hummingbird’s visit and just as sweet

 

when we were young it was easy for me

 

seeing the world from inside the safety glass of the family car

innocence was as easy as unlocked doors

knowing who lived in each house on the block

and who’s mother made the best cookies

 

I thought that everyone else was as safe as I was

in those days before I knew about torture

about abuse and cruelty

punches that split skin

and the weight of undeserved guilt

 

perversions frequent as autumn rain

for too many, too young

too terrible

 

now, in this future of punched out walls

I wonder what happened to them

I try to recollect those faces

dredged images from ripped memories

some of those eyes must have been shrieking in their silence

calling for sympathy or salvation

locked in rolling hells

moving closer to the next indignity

while I worried about a music lesson I hadn’t practiced for

if I could return to those moments

I wouldn’t challenge fragile eyes with directness

I‘d look at you obliquely and offer you my passing tears

I’d applaud you for carrying on

holding your head up as you looked out at a world

that held more sins than miracles

 

I would unlock my eyes from the illusion

I would try to see your truth

not mine

 

 

 

David Trudel     © 2015