Shop Glass

Past the bakery, dark now,

the smell of old bread still faint.

My feet drag. I'm not ready

for the morning's new complaint.

Then the window of the dry cleaner,

grimy, streaked with night.

And in it, me. Not quite.

Stretched thin, like taffy pulled,

the streetlight making a blur

around my head. My own face

but not quite sure

it is. A stranger, almost,

flattened to the pane.

A dirty kind of ghost,

coming out of the rain.