Young is the Night

 

A thin veil brushes the dome of dusk,

The tender hours, their edges curled,

Like straw, skitter across the brooding firmament,

After the last shot declares silence golden.

 

The night is young, she whispers.

 

Circus fires eat away at the fabric of dark;

Where once the acrobat soared, mute we stand.

The night, still in diapers, sniffs around—

Pair of snails in blind search, craving dirt beds

In the fields of bones' deep sleep and kin forgetfulness.

 

It's the pride of the night we cherish,

Silent as a painting in a charcoal frame;

This thicket of barbs, a lullaby to lone pines,

The weary rhythm of endless roads pulsing.

 

The night—a babe, swaddled in the smoky breath of industry.

 

Stuff the smokestacks with winding paths,

Where hands alight flames like open books,

Braiding stares, eyes wide as the cosmos.

The night claims us, branded with imprints of light.

 

Ash-flecked faces once basked in a knowing sun.

 

Now they're yanked by hysteria from the womb,

Stunted ponies turned highways full of screams.

Along new horizons, beasts of fancy stride—

Stonewashed ripples in thinking waters birth themselves anew.

 

The circus sifts through smirks in the archives of the mind.