Night Like black velvet, Drapes over the cracked concrete porch, Gift-wrapped in shedding crepe myrtles.

And you wait, Grasping a crooked pine branch Discarded flotsam shaken from some naked tree By last nights gale. Seated on the waist-high wall of jaundiced brick, You mark the reflections in the dirty plexiglass windows The pockmarked moon coiled in gliding silver tendrils. And still you wait, Etching a Paleolithic caricature In the silt deposits. Across the way, a door swings open. The slurred cacophony stumbles over the bushes And swallows your quiet in its finale: The glow of brakelights (Moth eyes beneath the snared moon), The wet peel of tires, And the diminishing aboriginal rumble of sub woofers. And again, silence Thick and unbroken By the soft, familiar footfall, Whose owner youve etched With delicate strokes Into the wet canvas Of caked sediment. Your soles smear the portrait, The grime sticking fast between the treads. Turning, You raise the branch above you And strike Again and again At the clustered blossoms, Which fall like zealous sweat From tangled lovers. Your feet scrape against the sidewalk Between the sterility of a studio apartment And the hazy reflection of the moon

Untangled and solitary, Through the barren spent branches, Whose thickly clustered blossoms Had sheltered you From prying headlights, Peeling tires, And the jagged teeth of impermanence.