This does not touch me...
Long ago, I took a startled flight,
and settled in a nest of nettled memories,
each ragged straw selected so it might
provide the perfect parametric perch
to cling to while I wait upon the night.
Oh, it is me that puffs and coughs,
that wheezes through the smoky haze,
and you will find me leaning
dry feet on chilly tiles
trickling quietly into the evening
listening for the final drop and days.
But that, like this, no longer
has a meaning or a shame.
No longer generates a feeling
I could call a name, or claim
that this is me, and here is now,
and there's a wind for soaring.
And now, far from the feelings,
far from the memories of seized sins
and softness made more supple by the stealing,
an aging bird of night with feathers thin,
checks his wallet, snuffs out the cigarette,
and turns his ruffle up against the wind.
Amid the shadows of the darkened streets,
beneath the winking of a mocking sky,
the prey appears: skittish, quiet, weak,
with eyes that have forgotten how to cry.
For this sullen swoop she'll play the fateful meek
as two shadows in the dark join in a lie.
This does not touch me...
for I have learned to numbly ride regret,
learned that gifts of midnight nymphs
do not begin to pay up memory's debt,
but yield a moments rumble in a rush of wind,
that afterward, we'll both wait to forget.
