1.

You descend through night's black skies
an elongated bullet suffused with blue light
from your window the cityscape lumbers awake
like a crab side-stepping fires of flotsam

Your soft shell flashes with pinpricks of stars
plucked from your earth-bound parapets
no one says "castle" or "torches" anymore
yet how you long for the glow of the past

Generators churn energy to seal you
to brothers in arms guarding the runway
your ears pop as you widen your mouth
and swallow the moon hanging by a string

2.

How you love this desert blanketed in sand
how you wrap it around your troubles and sigh
how it obscures the mist of your crab nebula
how love outlasts the sky like a fresco

Reach across the aisle to your sister in chains
plumb the depths of her quiet revery she knows
what light obscures she knows the cost of darkness
tell her night slakes every thirst in the romance of light

The crab sleeps half-buried in sand it stirs only
to shift positions even sleep cannot ease its pain
you know now that this flight remains in shadow
O how light loves the drama of our checkerboard lives