Night's Habits

Night never rushes,
but idly breathes
through eulogies,
in cloud or in stars
recollections of the departed
douse flickering boredom
with the ability to remain still.

In the absence of light

all that remains

are shadows of the faces

of those who took themselves

out of the future,

to forever change

the context of their memory.

Their last moments are engraved

onto the stone of things

which I cannot understand,

and each weigh as much

as the trains which brought their end,

where the tears of the witnessing passengers cooled

as they ran their tracks downward.

Night never rushes,

but they rushed through it–

not towards daylight

but a closer fire,

singeing nostrils and

systematically consuming

combustable flesh in its flames.

Written early November, about where the mind goes when awake at night and trying to process recent deaths of friends.