Night Outside a Window

How can I ever know if I was happy

Am      from inside      the house I hear the parents

Children in light      if I feel how the children

Sound sometimes how they sound but less so now

Sounded when they were small      and sometimes looked

In winter sometimes when I came so early

The blinds were up still     and I saw inside

Or when in summer I surprised them hid

The world between the present and the future

Sometimes I saw the children’s faces change

Discovering themselves there     trapped between

The present and the future in the dark

The light let go     then caught again a parent

Flicking a switch and there I am the children’s

Wonder at me     a common thing arrived

Unnoticed now determining their lives

I think the change meant     wonder am I sure

What wonder is     I know what people say

They’re feeling when their faces change like that

And what I’m feeling when I think the word

I think it’s close to happiness     but how

To touch the seam between the dusk and me

But I’ve seen wonder     but just after wonder

Resentment     though they     people pass their lives

Through me beside me     inhalations passing

A mouth     I bring them home and keep them home

Like holidays do     all their happy times

But is the gift in darkness the same gift