Nightfall

The longest night is full
of sweet lullabies,

polite and skittish
in all this darkness
like shopworn lovers who forget
the language of the heart.

Stars are brusque in this land of sleeping
where the charred blackness of the sky
roosts with a certain
anticipation of the clamor
of a deeper dawn.

In this solitude
the question isn't
how much time has passed.

The question is
how much trust
was withdrawn

when Hope lost her way
and she had to walk blindly

with only the sound of her breath
to keep her from surrendering
to the panic that comes
at the sound of our own
vacant and echoing footsteps
at the edge of every nightfall.