Nighttime Poetry

Embers' Light

Here we whisper through the night,

faces hid by screens alight.

 

The enemies are time and space

when all you want a voice, a face;

The form behind the written words

that fly these thoughts like wings of birds.

Yet here we sit 'round embers' heat,

because light is light and its warmth

still sweet.

An Empty Spot by Your Side

A man lies in bed

in the middle of the night,

Windows open wide

and sheets drawn tight.

 

His bed is littered

with things that he owns,

As he tries to forget

that he’s all alone.

When she drifts in,

that cool spring breeze,

Running her fingers down his spine

and the backs of his knees.

 

“Sleeping once again

adrift and alone?”

Asks the voice of the breeze

through the creaks of the home.

“All the stories on your shelves

and your house full of things,

can't save you from a night by yourself

on that old box spring?”

 

She laughed when said this

Which raised the bumps on his skin

 and he wrapped his blankets tighter,

tried to keep out chagrin.

She ran her fingers gently

through his hair as she spoke,

“Would anyone even notice

If you never woke?”

“and if they did,

Would they care?”

Cooed the breeze on the bed

Over the sound of his prayers,

That wished for nothing more

than for a warm hand to hold:

To comfort and console

And to stave of the cold.

But only the ice in her words

Filled the empty spot by his side,

though he tried to tune it out,

though he tried not to cry.

Yet still she came every night

to make sure the thought was sewn,

That he was alone.

So alone

in his big dark home.