Broken Corn Kernels

The window in the back wall
While time serves and we are but
Decaying has a little

Leak along the bottom sill
That betrays it, and anguish
That earns it doesn't know it

Has the melancholia
Of a boy in the arid,
Solitary world of dreams,

Of a Great Depression dish
Common to cartoon minced oaths,
Deep Blues and New Englanders

Of the era, my mother
Included. This mildewed dust
Exists to remind windows,

Widowers and Italian
Readers: to arouse wonder
Stare, unafraid, at one thing.