I wrote this when I was at my "bottom," as we in the program call it:

A wandering man smashed in my window
and wandered on.
Maybe I’ll fix my window, and maybe I won’t.

The weather is brilliantly summer,
and lost love whispers in my ears
like jasmine corridors of an old woman’s dreams.

All that matters is today; and
the scream of birth and the gasp of death.
And in between, the honey-edged fixed income

Measured in the steps of the old couple
Who, each day, at the exact heartbeat of sunset,
Walk beneath my window, arm in arm.

I can see them make their way
to that particular Moment
between the apartment and the church.

He removes his blue work cap,
and she, another of her lively hats,
as they disappear behind the church doors . . .

I imagine them kneeling together
in a sun that streams through a painted saint,
in a multi-colored window,

and falls on their wrinkled coats.
She looks lovingly at her husband,
watching his lips move as he prays . . .

My lips move often now,
but the words are not enough.
Your memory kneels beside me,

but it is not you—
it is only a saint, and I am kneeling
in broken glass.