On a doorstep sits a aging glance drummed with two stretched shopping bags Cat licked stringed morsels, forgotten regrets

Her gaze barely ever rises above the knees of passers by never stretching, pretending, striving wading through decaying mud baths of laughter from hurried lives

sometimes her eyes do meet their stares past innocent chirping children, leashed parents who bare venom doused contempt, no pocket change

we should sit as one and make of it a day, you and I tell me of children you bore, perhaps were forced to gave away

I will listen on your doorstep, simmered, reduced not to conceal nature’s naked spools Tell me songs of lovers you outwore

let there be magic in a communion but tell me first, were there husbands or just the lust of drunken men tell me again did love lead you past abstraction

tell me what to look for in signé shopping bags fluttering by, past centuries and hooves catching chic frills draped in Parisian sky

Silva Zanoyan Merjanian