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| photo by alexander young |
thirty-five of you,
i’ve seen come nightly
i’d lean over to feel you
and fail,
the hands, not mine,
move constantly away
choosing to chase uncertainty.
you wear the frequent, nameless gloom
long before i step outside to hail you
are you loneliness?
you shy away from an answer, looking stern, unscathed.
i go on filling you with words,
the wind goes on taking them all away
and with liberty--
but are you loneliness?
orange, yellow, gray, pitch-black almost
at the back of my head i’m guessing.
i look up from my fiction, there i see you again
the one from last night but never acting the same
steal another night or so from my children
i tucked them tight and tender
so move the way you do—catlike and deep in poetry
so no one hears you- -loneliness?
some nights i meet you so quietly
though you bring the same glow
here, and where my eyes can’t see.
no you don’t scare, you don’t.
you bring nameless gloom, i always say
come, let me look at that face you’re wearing tonight
for if loneliness, it’s you again,
i ask that you don’t come tomorrow night
and hide in the name moonlight.
