Women at Windows
After “Heat Wave” by Kadir Nelson and “Young Woman At A Window” by Salvador Dali

I am not the kind of woman to put her body through
a window. My mother would say, you are not a girl
that frames nicely. A smartypants, I wanted to be a
necked beauty with a psychedelic popsicle, a puckered
cocoa dog, silk sailor dress lingering above my knees.
A girl at a sill bubbling lips and nipples, biting off wind
like a plum. For the rest of us, meaning me, the fumes
of exhaust, sludge on papered gutters, plastic blondes
stained puce. Whomever rolls past the window looks
at me never. Ever. Gray, thinking now of gray, perhaps
I always was. I do not remember goosing or fondles,
but even slack thighs find a way into bed, percussive
slats and silky slopes, nights glowing whispers. I chose
one, I see what could happen. I was unfit for portraits:
girl gone gray as a pigeon, girl with the body of a door.
I slam, I lock, I crack open. Wide, wide, wider.

—Lisa Furmanski

Lisa Furmanski lives in New Hampshire with her husband and two sons. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Antioch Review, Massachusetts Review, Gettysburg Review, and more.