At the Window

All afternoon I’ve been waiting for light
to lift what’s left of the day, to inch itself

improbably — the unlikely contortionist —
through a gap in the gloom. I stare out of the window

willing something to appear; something beyond
the partial reflection of a self I almost remember.

On the sun-yellowed sill the scattered husks
of houseflies, bumblebees, the dust of dead moths;

I imagine their last moments: seeing through the glass
a world no more than a wingbeat away, a way out

almost within reach; unaware until the last
how even transparency becomes impenetrable.