From dreams of iridescent blue,
  she woke to damp and cinder-block,
  the stone-gray sunset smeared across
  a pane upon a window by
  a door with broken lock and splintered wood.

A creaking spring, a bleary glance,
  her glasses off a windowsill,
  as slippering her feet, she rose
  to wrap a shawl around her, and
  to walk onto a courtyard looking out.

She waited in the cold and still,
  the night before a hazy mess
  of cigarettes and alcohol —
  and saying “I’ll enjoy this life,
  or die, at least, at last, in the attempt –”

A man she didn’t know at all,
  came out his door with coat and boots,
  and weary as a dying breath
  trudged off and up the hill and towards
  the distant town a half a mile away.

There was no warm to calm her soul,
  just unrelenting hollowness;
  but yet, a silent fixed intent
  to find again the dream so brief
  of cobalt blue and one love’s luxury