Changed

I stood in front of the window 
for two hours, yesterday.  
There used to be a beanbag chair 
where the bookcase is,
and I could sit there
watching the street through the screen
on the nights I couldn’t fall asleep.  
But the beanbag is long gone, 
so I leaned my elbows on the windowsill 
and stayed until I was tired. 

When the nights start to get warm,
around this time every year,
I have trouble sleeping.  
When I was younger, 
I used to be able to sleep 
with my head at the foot of my bed 
and let the cool night air wash over my face.  

I always get sick around this time, too, 
in my eagerness to breathe nature’s breath
before it’s quite warm enough.  

But my room has been reorganized
and the bed moved, 
too far away for me to feel the breeze 
trickling in through the window. 

There isn’t much to see 
when I look out, 
just the pavement and the trees and
sometimes the headlights of cars that 
belong to people working late nights. 
It calms me, though, 
stills the thoughts in my head 
and the worry in my heart 
with all the nothing that’s happening outside. 

I once watched a kid across the street
light a firecracker 
with his friends, though,
and heard it pop on the ground,
echoing loudly in the 2 a.m. quiet. 
He went off to college 
last year, and
nothing like that has happened since.  

Not that I’d be watching it
anyways, 
because the bookcase is now 
where the beanbag chair used to be, 
and I don’t sit in front of the window
anymore.