Now that there’s something to see out there,
spring springing, bugs bugging, sky blue-ing,
I’m looking through windows that could

use a good wash—on my car, which all
of a sudden are bird-splatted. This didn’t
happen all winter. Now the fly-bys

decide to alight on the trellis over
the driveway, poised over the car,
sitting amid baby wisteria emerging

from their budded cocoons and merrily
letting go? I consider this as I look
out the kitchen sink window,

which is winter-coated in schmutz,
too high for me to wash without
a ladder, and I don’t do ladders.

So that makes me think of Ernest,
wondering if he’s still doing windows,
that blesséd man who wears my late

husband’s middle name as his first,
who has for years shown up on my porch
offering to wash all the windows

for a ridiculously low price. I always
pay him more than he asks, running
to the bank for cash. And when I return,

the crack of his lightning smile breaks
across his kind face, as Ernest says,
Thank you, ma’am, though he is

somewhere in my vintage, and I’ve
gently told him that he can call me
by my first name as I call him by his.

That’s what you say to ladies,
he once told me. And I imagine
the mamas and grandmas

and aunts in his family who
brought him up right, who
insisted on such good manners.

Thank you, dear sir, for all the years
of clean windows. May I ask
if you might shine them up again?