Through the Grime

They took the scaffolding down on Friday

and left the windows thick with dust,

handprints from the workers, plaster spray,

a kind of accidental crust

that nobody will clean for weeks because

the building's sold but no one's moved in yet,

and Saturday the sun came through because

the sun comes through—it doesn't know about the wet

gray months or the permits or the fact

that I was hauling sheets inside a garbage bag.

It hit the glass and something cracked

open—light turned fat,

almost orange, granular, like light

you could chew if you caught it on your tongue,

and it landed on the sidewalk, bright

but softened, like a word half-sung,

and I stopped. I just stopped

with the bag pulling at my hand

because I was ten years old and the light dropped

exactly like that through my grandmother's screen

door, the one she never cleaned.

She said the grime made everything kinder.

She said clean glass was mean,

that dirt was a reminder

the world doesn't owe you clarity.

I stood there on the sidewalk

and a cloud moved in

and the light went ordinary

and I kept walking

but I walked different after that, I think,

or maybe I just wanted to,

which might be the same thing

or might be nothing

at all.