The Second Night's Rising
The steady squall of crickets
outside a double window near wishing time
accompanies the summer
nights. Lamps dimly
light the walls with yellow warmth
as a fan spins aimlessly above
in abandon, while the bass beats
borrow your ears for their
calm reassurance of life’s pursuit.
Thunder, not loud but a small reminder of
existence, calls to rain and wind
and a slight transformation
occurs within sight, each
scratching, stretching,
licking our lips, restless for
the drawing night and its overbearing might.
Haunted, auto-mechanically so,
our brains fix onto their fears,
gilding everything near with distaste.
To run, beyond the pouring, until
we’re too tired to conjure those images,
too exhausted to hear our own torments,
we wither with its oppression, the obsession.
We desire its complexity, fully knowing the
effects, laying bare and shivering
in its wake, willing the end and warring within
for each others’ sake. Prettily, we pout
frustratingly without and in doubt.
We isolate ourselves to these gathered worries,
last to initiate despite the hurry,
walking away—surly
in remorse. We break ourselves, cracking
before another’s hand can. We’re set
unhappily apart, tables, chairs, and streets,
solidly playing monkey in the middle,
neither able to start, this art, until
you realize your odyssean mission
towards home: your fingers wrapped
with my own.
