Window Gaze

Past the closed stores, the mannequins

fixed in their silent, empty grins.

My reflection caught me, on the pane,

a tired face, a sudden strain.

My eyes, they looked like someone else's there,

superimposed, a stranger's stare.

Over the plastic limbs, the false display,

I saw myself, in a stark, cold way.

Not quite myself, not fully known,

a face that time had roughly sown.

And for a moment, in that glass,

I didn't recognize who passed.