The Pomegranate Gown

This Poem was submitted for the poetry contest "Jamie's interesting contest 1" sponsored by Jamie Pan, for theme #6. Reflections in a window. Once while my mind was drifting through a cafe fenestration, Whence my cappuccino cup carouseled round a mindless spun spoon, A presence within a reflection's penumbral lines broke my lack of concentration: A woman stood between the clash of shadows and pale light of the moon. She stood there in the street resound on the glass, Dressed in a pomegranate gown which melted to the ground. Around her the air shuttered and shook within a glowing gas, And she stared at me through the glass, although her head was not around. Looking around to see if anyone else could see her too, The busied bodies around me kept on being, undisturbed. I rubbed my eyes and shifted to erase her from my view, Yet she stayed put in the window with her body unperturbed. "The horseman is a marewoman" I thought, fancying myself clever, "And she is headed to a ball and forgot her head; Perhaps we've been telling the story of Cinderella wrong forever" The thoughts from inside my attention deficit head said. I stopped, when suddenly, the phantom in the reflection crossed her arms, And I imagined her absent head shaking in disgust. Having unwittingly insulted a ghost, who haunted me in a foreign town of farms, I apologized in my head to this woman whom I was beginning to distrust. Guilt was replaced with anxious fear as I realized this woman was in my mind, Hearing my thoughts and reacting to them appropriately. Sweat trickled down my neck and dropped into the cup of espresso grinds, And I averted my gaze from the woman and noticed the barista looking at me. Having noticed me staring intently through his window, He looked through to see where my sight dove in to swim, I looked at him look and then looked where my eyes had showed, When the woman lifted her arm and pointed right at him. He dropped his demetasse, which cracked in half upon the floor, Spilling a machiatto onto the granite beneath his feet. He looked back at me whilst everyone looked as he swore, As he quickly cleaned up his mess to make it, yet again, neat. I immediately went up to him before I had time to think, And asked: "So you saw her, too?" To which he said with a wink, "Saw who?" 2/15/17