We are gathered
a crowd of unknowing
some all night, they say,
some since bird-yellow dawn
tautened strings

a broad blank shop window
empty, paused, waiting
There, cries the boy,
There: a shade of violet,
bending, shimmering

we strain and peer –
was there a movement
ripple in the glass
fault, parallax, water
between the sheets

an impossible change in the air
a defunct TV screen
emitting its last rays
blue as paradise,
faint as the last bird

we saw nothing, we say
even to the police, moving us
along, an unseemly crowd
nothing, except perhaps
the ghost’s violet shimmer.