[1] Another winter day is ending. Figures bent over their books deepen Into shadow at the far window. I watch a woman clad in black Suck on, deeply, a cigarette. Smoke congeals thickly in the cold air. Breathing becomes harder by a degree. That tip flickers like a beacon As does pain at cornea’s edge.

[2] On the window pane The double helix of a man’s ironed Shirt and the profile of a woman Sitting on the other side of the glass, Lit only along her edges, a corona; These moments seem to be In a code that I can’t decipher.