My Courtyard Window  

opens to American Sycamore molted-gray branches
flush with pale-green serrated leaves stretched
beyond my fifth-floor walk-up.  

American Tree Sparrows toss teel-wit teedle-eet  
back & forth. I think of Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window,
only I have no binoculars.  

My hazel 20-20’s pan 180 degrees, past wide-open
windows, & watch twilight disappear. Trumpet scales
sun-splotched Brooklyn red-brick sunrise,   

teases interior movement. 4th floor window’s clothesline cranks
private to public space, flaps personality. Paint-stained
carpenter jeans, turned inside out so pockets dry, multi-task  

in my imagination: hourly-wage earner by day/color-bubbled
graffiti artist by night. White-bleached, mended sheets sag
the middle, & socks, one missing, off-balance  

the ends. 2nd floor window frames a snowy-haired, canary-yellow
t-shirted man. He leans full-torso out & calls a baritone-rich Hola
to passersby below.    

He keeps faithful watch, misses no one. Mid-day, a groceries-bearing
octogenarian waves him Nǐ hǎo & bump-thuds her cart
up three flights of stairs.  

In the cool of evening, gastronomic geography draws me to window perch:
sweet yeasty aroma of babka, onions sautéed with garlic, slow-cooked frijoles,
& bucatini con le sarde, oregano/rosemary tanged.  

Trumpeter circular-breathes lip trills, clean & smooth sorrow-laced
lows bridged high, our nocturne:
Halleluiah