The heart wanders at night
searching, searching, searching,
for what remains
or for what has been romanticized,
but was never really there to begin with.

Combing through the debris of failure
with such regularity
that it resonates like an owls talons on cement-
- down a dark hallway.

Yet sometimes in the starlight
the heart finds something that makes everything
brand new once more.

I couldn't decide if the light attached to her
or if she swallowed it whole,
or was engulfed by it,
but there it was, in her hair -
diaphanous strands living in the ether
a little closer to the Gods than I was.

She burned extravagantly in those soft hues,
pining for the garish light of day.

The light plays tricks on you sometimes,
and the heart finds its way out of the woods
remembering sailors tales and old
Aristophanes.