People Of The Window Poem by Ashley Ormon

Sometimes when there’s nothing to do
and the day is slow, I just watch the People of the Window.

Looking at a woman all dressed up,
skirt and buttoned blazer wearing her high-heeled shoes,
I listen to the tick-tap click-clack sound of her
drawing near.

I wonder where she is off to…

On the opposite side of the street lies a man,
tall man, about six feet high, sitting alone on a bench
reading the daily news, every now and then he’ll take a glance
up from his paper while sipping his tea to watch the children nearby play.

I turn my head to look at the little girls playing
hop scotch, while one little boy catches ants. A woman
passes by him around the age of sixty-two, grabs hold
of the little boy’s arm and shakes her finger.

I guess she must have told him to stop catching ants…

The traffic light at the end of the busy street turns
red and all incoming traffic comes to a halt-
old and new cars both fancy and dull, with the drivers
each consumed in their own world.

One man is on a cell phone, another simply looks around,
a young girl, perhaps, who’s in college, begins to put on makeup.
I spot a middle-aged couple in their red convertible
blasting their music so loudly it muffled the music of the street.

And then the light turns green…


It has been about fifteen minutes now,
Time to say goodbye to all the people of the street,
while I look around for something
to do on my own.

So goodbye businesswoman, tall man,
boy and two girls playing, the elderly lady telling the
young boy to stop collecting ants, and all of the people I’ve
seen in the halting traffic.

Goodbye People of the Window, and I close the curtain blinds shut…