It is night
                or almost--
And the dark lingers close,
To sift through my coat
And rub against skin,
As all my without
Settles within.

Far off, traffic grumbles like thunder crashes;
Head-lightning flashes, swerves and passes
Under scything curves of the moon.
My thoughts toss with their rumblings
Tumbling in exhaust of the tired people,
High-wired people--
This night is lost on them.

I walk by myself, but not alone,
For here, every ghost is one of my own
And fires of constellations, dimmed,
Are pins in a cushion of night.
I won’t worry them my plight
For star-patterns of lamp-heads
Are blooming in the warm damp;
Amber blossoms, ripening,
Flecked with falling dew
Like goldenrods budding on thin stems,
With dainty rains diving on wan winds.

Drips fall as the stars to molded cement
To smear honeyed light on these even stones.
Removed hives of traffic buzz their empty drone;
I pass notes in tones I’ll soon leave in the past
But immediate now, for lamplight can't last.
The rushed drizzles fall, with no strain, and no breeze,
With no secrets passed from the winds to the trees,
Just rhythms of thoughts, of could’ves and oughts,
And the near-silent tread, the near-silent beat
Of the steps of my feet, and the drops on the street,
The bricks paved with shadow, drifts of shadow on stone.

There’s something vaguely haunting,
Slightly daunting all alone--
But I am not alone.

Above my reflection in shuddering puddles,
Beyond introspection, a neighborhood huddles
With solemn, dull eyes, glowing and cold,
Wary of requests to be consoled,
To not lose my friend.
I feel their eyes scold as they whisper--
(How dare she refuse him, how daring and bold!--
She’ll get what she needs in the end.)
They sit and watch in fastidious rows,
Flocking together with tight-framed smiles
In an unwanted, false-fronted pose.
I’m foreign to them, and those who roam
Those who tread the quiet hours, any strangers present
Are a danger to futures and futures of stock;
And they stare, and they glare, and I walk.

Something grows now, something wrong;
The swift-startling shock of a headlight flare
Forces me aware of a motor pulling in,
Escorting its riders up a flat-lined drive.
They’re home, they’ve arrived, but I’ve
Flown a quarter of the Earth to come here, too,
Only to reach my separate conclusion.
I blend in, bend my back and slouch
To act as I’m not hiding,
Biding restless hours on the streets so close to yours.
And I’m dismissed, for neither of the pair
Emerging from their car into the creeping dark of night
Gives a glance to the glimmer in the air
Falling soft upon my hair
And twinkling like a halo, as it glistens, soft and bright.
The two are used to wayward drunks, winding home, or on the prowl,
And although it’s what they see, what I am is out of sight.
I’ve had no drink, not a single hasty sip
Of anything stronger than windows’ scowl
And quivering coronas of dewdrop luster.
Neither constellation cluster nor moonshine passed my lip.

They enter their house and close the door,
And I am myself once more.

And does your window stay lit still?
I wonder past your windowsill,
Past yellow lights in nights of gold,
Past sneaking nights in cloaks of cold,
Of playful schemes, and if I hurt you
With dreams in black and white, of Virtue--
Your world, our world, fighting will,
As contrast swirled in drips of paint,
As trips and feints, as lips and saints;
Of where you sit, of where you lie,
And where you will- and where will I?
Of those you see behind your screen…
Ah, but now I draw the curtain.
Let me, now, enjoy the sheen
Of streetlight glow on solid, certain.
I’ve made my choice, your motives known.
And look at the lamps, how they flicker like candles!
How they flicker like votives, tiny, intense,
Burning as fervent blessings are prayed.
Look at them glow from their iron handles!
Look at them dare to stand on their own,
Mist’s drizzles like tears I won’t cry, sense
And prudence protecting from downpours of rain--
Of how much I could lose and what I’d never gain,
From back when I pinned my heart to my shirt,
And how little it took to mend the hurt…
Yes, I will pull the windowshade.

Do you laugh, now, at a wayward girl
Who grew up, to get caught in the drifts of a world
Shimmering unreal, with night spectral-curled
As smoke, as wisps around ankles and knees,
Like vines around trees, strangling as wreaths
Or mistletoe in Yuletide glow…
Yes, let me pull the shade.

Out here, I can waft like a waif down the alleys
Like a tomcat, who dallies
As he toys with the mice and the rats;
Rude to his guests,
And playing with his food,
Prized for teasing private pests
As cats are wont to do.
But the prey always loses,
And I didn’t toy with you.
I let honor guide my youth
To follow where it chooses,
And you knew.
No matter how golden glazes shine
Or how they shimmer still,
Despite my shivering confusions
They have never been more than mirages, illusions,
And never will--
You would have had me play.
Here I can walk like a waif, like a stray--
I was always more of a stray.

These roads have lead nowhere I’ve not been
Earlier in evening’s ponderings,
And soft yawns slowly draw down my chin
To tell me yes, yes, it's time to leave,
To end my careful ramblings,
To end the pensive amblings
And once again pretend to be naïve.
I sigh to leave the wanderings
In evenings wet from being cleaned,
Warm as velvet being steamed, to be crushed or embossed.
My reveries in ebony left me half-lost
In cobblestones' reflection; now I must hurry
To catch up to the rush and the flocks of those ruled
By the clocks, who will worry
If I’m claimed by the night, glossed and sheened
With pyrite jewels, burning bright,
Then clouded with miniscule furies of frost.
I leave you in the dark, and a single lamp sighs,
Flickers as a firefly, then shudders once and dies.

I’ll find my own window, I’ll make my own peace,
And a new day will rise with the sun in the east
For I’m not alone as I find my way home;
There are millions of billions of stars in the skies,
And their garden blooms vivid in rich evening's loam.
The last of the lamplight fades from my eyes.

And there!
                  look,
                            the moon lingers above me,
A sliver of pocked pearl nestled in lovely,

Fat waning thin
To thin waxing fat,

Like the riddling grin
      Of a Cheshire cat.