silencing a habit

originally published in CSU’s “A” Literary Magazine | May 2011

Can you hear the stars?
he laid across train tracks as the silver ripple of bat wings cooled the air

Only a whisper, he replied, with tiptoe caution fainter than the sound
out of fear of interrupting the occasional ghost laughter

I knew his location, where the pulse of electrical lines throbbed
sounding out the bloodbeat of the country air

They’re merciless here
outside my bedroom window
the buzzing sapphire and timber of stars
beat my skull through my pillow

an orange cadence dilates in pools around streetlights
still not deafening enough
to drone out the tick swell and twitch
of murky creatures’ throats

a call from home to me,
a stray varmint of the walls
sorely missed,
an ebony bruise on the heart

Skipping on the ashen bones of concrete,
my shadow searches for blocks
It finds him there,
cropped close to the fray of audibility

It sighs, She isn’t going to make it. He twitches
but still draws near and alone,
they listen