Poems

The Lost Button

This morning, the shop windows look drab.
People hurry straight past the gaudy dresses.
Mirrors lined-up on the pavement wait for reflections.
The streets still deserted,
the sticky palms of passers-by are lined with sleep.
Then a solitary shirt
gapes wide open on the path -
what cast you in front of these mirrors?
Morning lifts from the heavy eyes of those wandering
            aimlessly.
Only the shirt knows their face.
Only the shirt -
yet their only pleasure is bargaining.
The shirt shivers in anticipation,
longing for someone who cares nothing for prices,
who knows nothing of sucking the desire from a button,
a button half-hidden, stitched to a label, lost in the folds
            of cloth:
the button touches itself and lets out a sigh of relief.
It was when her hand moved across the window
that she found this lost button.
Alert, lost in thought, she forgets the strangers passing
            her by.
She flushes with tenderness, with the secret aftermath
            of desire,
dazzling the window.