Willow eyes. An emaciated nightfall.
One thumbs through the streets with a
drool-lined jaw,
o how hastily does a rock tumble itself
smooth.
Gestating dawn.

The mountain is sanctified,
it is unpenetrated by pulse.
Cleaving to its back like flies,
Penfield’s houselights fall, one by one, slack and lusterless
to the brush,
from which no contented sighing, no stirrings, may emerge.
O how solemnly is the world, in its casket,
lowered into night—
the repentant city blots itself out.

One prowls, slinking,
jaw thick, stomach trimmed with liquid moonlight,
through the churning hours.
Nearby, the hooded clouds busy themselves conjuring rain—
o how satiated we will be,
when the face of our living is anointed!

Until then,
one prowls, slinking, in search of words to cull
from the road,
some propaganda, throbbing neon, litter preserved
for legibility,
laid to rest atop the callused palm of an alleyway.
All the while, madness becomes bloated,
and juts out from the soul.

But the atmosphere only holds where it will not
be scorched—
that is to say, the stars are already wilting.
As these hours stream sloppily from the barrel
dedicated to its churn,

light decorates its glittering altar for baptism.
Finally, the earth, being born, reborn,
heaves the mucus from its lungs in great,
big wails—noise renews itself,
the birds relinquish their shyness to the blurry past.
O how soft is the brow in the aftermath of tears.

Tell,
shall there be no other midnight?

Kat Mulligan is a Virginian writer.