a window has no liberty
in what it shows

each side distinct:
worn or curtain-drawn ignorant

one side looking out
thinking that is life

the other
tapping quietly
let me in

I could throw one of these rocks
at the moon and watch it fall
through the sky like it
was nothing
terrestrial, but meant
to pass through
the January night
silent and fleeting,
like the memory of you
leading me to the front yard
eighteen years ago to meet
comet Hale-Bopp
through a pair of old binoculars.

In the shade
I can still find rocks
coated with January
frost, the same winter
air that chilled your fingertip
as you pointed
toward the sky
to show me where to look.
I struggled to keep my
hands steady, five years old,
barely big enough
to grip the large lenses—
I found it, then lost it,
then found it again.

It twinkled against
the blank
space,
the icy rock we stood on
envying the icy rock
admired, and I wished,
as five-year-olds wish,
to be something too,
falling gracefully
around the sun, transient,
spectacular, rare, something
worth the trip
into the brisk January air
to be found, then lost,
then found again.