Patrolling Nights

Only in cities do I miss you now: among the crowded streets

Quick with faces like blurred headlights, the shadows

Of the night fasten and latch, and it is autumn again.

The violet air pools, slips and streams by me

Like the notes from a flute, and

I reach for your hand,

Afraid. But all that is past now. Winter

Brought on a terrible cough, and with it

The strange consolation the soil beneath me

Was suffering as I was, undone

By heart’s fury, heart’s blood. And yet it seems

To me I’ve lived like this forever, face

Against the windowpane, waiting for the sun to set,

For the darkness to settle in, to make my solitary walk,

And hope against hope—fingers crossed—

To meet with such another as patrols the dark.