This lilting night
in a world still trembling,
streets sag with silence,
the hush tastes of smoke.

A crow cuts low,
black wing against orange,
leans into the wind,
folds, veers.

Above the trees,
the sky wears a copper bruise,
clouds thick as wool,
the light already retreating.

Air carries the edge of change-
sharp as bitten tin,
wet as stone on the tongue.

All sound brittle:
screen door whining,
tires on gravel,
a match struck to nothing.

your page turning,
the small sigh after,
your breath, mine,
keeping time with the dark.

outside, the cold air
unwraps my skin.
i’m listening to a friend
tell us a story
that feels rehearsed,
meant to impress
but all i can think about
how sweet my drink is
and the length of that girl’s dress
across the street.

then i see him —
half-familiar, waving.
i don’t remember his name,
but he does me,
goes on about
jobs he’s changed
and the old team.
i’m the only one left.

he asks if life
is treating me well.
i nod.

he asks if i’m happy.

i look down,
searching for the answer
between cigarette ash
and concrete.

“if you need to think about it,”
he says,
“you’re not.”

his words stay with me
for the rest of the night,
then the week,
then the month.

That night
It was
Us three

Two voices
Speaking. One
Sat silent

Us existing,
Talking, being
Apart, together.

I miss
Your voice
And you

Once, on a journey that is yet to be known,
I crossed the paths made for grey and stone.
The winds warp with every step,
The light of the moon and stars befall upon me,
Like silk trapped within a web.

Not twice do eyes here close for the night,
As they keep watch for clusters
Of imagination, or light.
The dreams here seem to drip
With liquid mercury and gold,
The shadows dance in the absence
Of bedtime stories told.

They say one shall not pass upon this city
Without the chance to grieve,
Yet, the shallow feelings devoid of warmth
And sleep have many more places to be.

My faithful companion,
My insomnia,

In the deep of night
While I sleep a fragile, restless dream,
The sound of engines cuts across the highway
Drills a dark well into my ears,
Forcing itself into my head
Like a worm inside a red, flawless apple.

Noise, the scarecrow of summer nights.

And my insomnia,
My silent shadow,
My friend of unrest

O, summer nights, you are too much for my delicate world!

The roaring old motorcycle,
The car with a broken muffler!
Loud music from a car,
Screeching tires,
Laughter echoing in the distance,
Dogs barking.

Oh, lively and restless warm nights!

Sounds follow one after another,
Like ants on a pool of juice
I keep quiet in the silence,
With a muffled scream.

And yet another summer night stretches painfully,
Strutting foolishly over the darkness
Of a sweltering city.

It’s these times of night
Of which I watch all the stars
Feeling like a child

I know I should be happy, with things given to me of love
But I can’t help it when everything is lost and gone
They’d tell me, At least you held it while it was there,
And if it’s ripped and broken, that it’s not their fault
That they’d warned me that some things cannot be held so tightly
Or it’ll crack, then shatter, and what I carried on a pedestal wasn’t so mighty
These words on the book would smear if I weren’t so careful,
But even accidents happen as the days unfold
A drop of a tear, or a thumb print on the side
Showing the history of where and who I was
What I was doing at the time when our family lost our luck
Or luck would be what we’d call it, as we never cracked the eggshells we walked upon
They’d question me at the alter and tell me to confess
As I’d hold the broken thing that I loved too hard to my chest
To my heart, for it’s empty, and maybe I could fill it
But this glass cuts too deep if I were to try to fit it in there
It’s ice in my hands, it’s burning coals in my mind
It’s a feather to the sky; if I’d set it on a scale, it’d weigh almost nothing
But if I were to swim with it, it’d be an anchor
And when the judge asks me what I have broken,
I’d say I broke the unspoken promise and had stepped out of line
I had cracked the shell that was holding together this family of mine
I hadn’t known that the threads would tangle with my limbs,
As it dangled from the sky
So when I stole a part of the night, and a part of the rest
They’d see in my hands
A broken, glass egg that I couldn’t put back together again.