Giving Up The Night

Raven clatters against the window at sunset
announcing the darkness
that comes with the leaving
of the light.

The lattice of lace
can’t stop the bristle
at the back of my neck
where I hold the thought of sleep
as a memory ground finely
into the stars that become
the flashes of Aurora Borealis,

illuminating the calendar
that would like to beckon spring
but has lost the words
for those younger parts of the body
that can make love
and simply regenerate themselves
into something whole,
something absolutely new.

Why then, am I bargaining with a song
I don’t know anymore
and holding the tattered wings of a monarch
who was too weak to fly over the mountains?

Perhaps it is time
to give up the night—
let the windows fly open
and allow all the ghosts
and chance to come closer,
to take their places
next to me in my single bed,

let the ocean
that could be love
wash over me
and plant pearls
along the chord of my spine
where I’ve learned to stretch
into the shell of myself,

give up the night
and the time it takes
to close my eyes
and instead descend
into the ebony wind.