Contributor: Rich Boucher

- -
I am looking into the mannequin's eyes;
the time on my watch reads too late
and twenty minutes or so go by
between each car on the street,
each car’s passing whisper
that sounds like the quietest breaker
on the quietest shore you ever heard;
it is almost two in the morning
and I have been walking downtown for hours,
waiting for all the thoughts to float away
and free my mind
and I have come to a stop
into front of a fashion and kitsch boutique
almost at the bottom of the hill
in the downtown part of downtown.
The artificial girl in the window
wears a wine-coloured dress
with a low, low neck
and a dove charm on a white silver necklace;
she is wearing a hat like a peacock
from at least three generations before her time,
and in the gold of the lithium streetlamp
I am trying to get the mannequin's eyes to meet mine
and it would be great,
it would be so greatly frightening
if she were suddenly to speak;
it would be so greatly frightening that my mind could do that to me,
if she were suddenly to speak,
if her lips suddenly drew a breath in,
if she were to tell me that I should get on home,
if she were to tell me that it's late
and I should not be out walking these streets at this hour
when I have work tomorrow.


- - -
Rich has published four chapbooks of poetry and once hosted poetry slam in Newark, Delaware. Since moving to Albuquerque in 2008, Rich has performed all over Duke City, and is a regular contributor/editor at localpoetsguild.wordpress.com. His poems have appeared in The Nervous Breakdown, Adobe Walls: An Anthology of New Mexico Poetry, Borderline, Brawler, Crack the Spine, Extract(s), Fickle Muses, Grey Sparrow Journal, Poydras Review, The Mas Tequila Review and The Legendary.