Night Blindness

Where will you be when I 
return to the town that once 
forced me out. I was well-lost 
in the eastern cities, running for 
trains and burning down, in my chest 
and worth, what might 
matter―one breath-held flash of a 
heron, brooding, evening-like, 
through the metallic racket of 
wheels. No more stalemates of 
feeling, no more bitterness 
from the throats of those 
lucky enough to live where it is 
still possible to hear sounds 
not shaped by cars. And if I 
have been scarred, it is only because 
I gave up those woods and the long 
nightfall of color. If you are there 
upon my return I will ask you 
to bring the hushed forms 
to my door―the deer 
and clouds in icy tulle above the sleep-
pocked yards. If you refuse 
to make sense of what appears 
in you I will not quarrel. 
I am defiant only because it 
keeps me from downtroddenness. 
Under a moon of argent, the mountains 
ripple in moth-thinness―hey would be 
crushed if you touched them―
and the old oaks bracing the streets, 
the movie theatre whose placard is half-
stitched by frost, are nerve 
endings where the sting of being- 
alive can't stay captured. 
Night watcher. Pillar. 
All that I have, all that I would be, 
stills in the red amber of winter, 
in the blood cells of friends 
who, as you once did, 
hold out home to me.