İstanbul #7

So here is a coy game

I open a window in the room
Because it’s stifling in November
And I cannot breathe at all
Chilled air or late autumn warmth
Whatever it is catches my flu-white face
Eases me back to the land of the living

But then she in the blonde locks
She shuts out the draft fitfully, agitatedly
And then pours scalding coffee
Down her throat with defiance
At the tea maker brewing next door

The vacant classrooms haunt me
As I walk down the hallway during lunch hour
I keep returning to the glass panes
Like blind birds
Smashing my brains and my memories

One of them opens wide
And I shiver
Like a ghost
A ghost that has found a heart

Until the storm
Slams it shut another time
The verbs splatter onto walls
And feet stomp
An earthquake
Crashing into me
Like a shotput

She warns me of certain death
If that window stays open
To her to me to one and all
Leave out the winds of Armageddon!
Those vicious drafts
Will be a pox upon our souls

So I wait until nightfall
With no immune system left to fight
Anyone or anything
With no one safe from my hacking coughs
I’m huddled in a cocoon
With a white flag
And the balcony door welcoming inside the smog and twilight

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