The night is full.
It is simply in its element.
The clouds invade the dark universe,
Curtaining the stars and their moony mother.

Down here the cars don’t **** by much.
The roads are perfected,
Down to bits of fresh-hot tar rocks
And Chinese-lanternesque streetlights.

Houses yawn and drag logs of dreams
Into them. The patrons need it (it’s its excuse)
After a long hard day.
Everything else creaks and blooms. It is dreamy.

This dark hour asks nothing more than creation
Of something. Something eternal that rings us
In this golden circle of mathematics,
Complex and unintelligible.

It is child-like, this algebraic world.
It is simply in its element.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002