Only In a Different Life

Looking through the window of a shop, I see you with a woman. She lifts long auburn hair while you, who stand behind her, are fastening a strand of pearls around her slender neck. I close my eyes envisioning. . . I've opened them to you facing me, and I'm the woman with the red-brown locks! You touch my cheek, and in your eyes I read an urgent need. You lead me to the door, around the corner to an empty alley. Our bodies press together. In the chill of night, I taste warm, wild kisses on my mouth. "Darling, my darling," escapes my lips, then suddenly my reverie is broken. . . . A passerby has stopped to place a dollar in my cup. Murmuring my thanks, I gaze once more into the store where diamond rings and necklaces glitter like new snow beneath a winter moon. The man whom I could know only in a different life, who stands inside the store where I could never go, takes his sweetheart's hand and leads her past me pretending not to see a common homeless woman who yearns for so much more than mere necessities. For the Seeker's Being Homeless Poetry Contest