NIGHT LOOKS IN.
Night looks into
my window; I sleep
in a dark nowhere
a nowhere spitting
up steam, the streets
in their wetness, the
rolling night, the moon
unbroken, hidden,
like the eye of fall
that blinks cold tears,
then recedes under
the soft ground.
A rogue wind and
a new season overlap
life and death; a damp
chill on my spine
illuminates it, as it
throws off the mem-
brane of fear. I seek
possibilities; they
have given up looking
for me.
I have given up
fighting back the chill
of solitude; a bare-
knuckled wind
holds summer at
arm’s length.
The snakeskin winds
itself around my mind,
shedding its snake,
pouring out cold venom
this is the best winter,
or the best in a long time.
I surrender to the movie
machine, the great blinking
eye, a shroud of black-
and-white. In shades of
in-between I find the
new ability to live
inside the celluloid;
this is where I make
my hiding place, and
I scamper from room to
room with no notice.
I forever sit and listen
as the great Rubinstein
plays, makes love to the
keys, coronates Chopin.
I am safe here, in 1950,
or thereabouts, sitting
in a chair apropos to
1950, and I answer no
phones and in fact, am
not truly of this world,
nor of Rubinstein’s,
but I can migrate well,
A Zelig of diminishing
returns, and a kiss is
the only thing I lack, and
it is getting warmer, and I
still wear my old coat,
And when night
again breaks into
my house, I am in
a better place, away
from the lost children
of my old hopes,
Away from the
fangs of tyrants who
want me happy;
Away from the blind
moon and the rocks
I could never stop
throwing.
Steven Stone
January 2012