Midnight

Midnight

The streets are deserted.
A thin mist hangs after the winter rain.
The streets tremble in their halogen halos.

Roots and their labyrinthine fingers split open the streets,
leaves, green and yellow creep along the walls.
By morning they turn the walls to dust—the earth's ardor is vegetal.

Dark houses that follow the street's every whimsical turn,
huddling together like many hungry children,
such paroxysms of concrete, piping and raw elbows.

Who lives in them? I cannot deny complicity.
I may have shared in their bread.
Riotous all day, they're asleep now in long narrow beds,
loosing their heat to the stones.