After Midnight
"It is not all as evil as you think" Rolf Jacobsen
nasty weather. but that’s when bonfires
broil in trashcans,
not just for the cold nights—a gathering place
for the new and seasoned, for those who
don’t find shelter
or choose not to.
breaths, small spirals, shuffle in the frost,
like people for a chair.
it’s during bonfires, tall words
spark or one word spits, or
the same old rift between two friends
ignites—
the gun no the knife no the fist
in the face no the gut of a guy in the next
mission bed—worth bandying about,
except why. someone snorts with humour,
another stokes the fire,
scraps of ensuing silence pop in flame,
in airborne memories
communal tongues don’t speak. anyway,
it’s all one story, one thread drawn through the same
cloth of flammable prayer, a good night to flock,
where flickers fill up the night’s vagrancy,
flesh the soul, show strong bones
in the otherwise unseen hands held flat
to the fire, then curl and grasp
what the heat inside them now can will.
suddenly, the day’s cache of cigarettes is
for anyone who wants one.
a bottle passes ‘round reverently.
a joint’s incense, holy as church, swells
like a hymn in the lungs.
the young, about to go, hang around
and the elders acknowledge them
and make room in their circle. sometimes
someone breaks form, homesick, and leaves.
the rest hunker down, each to one’s choice one’s thanks
one’s exodus nobody judges:
a waving, woozy
green-light road regret on red,
this night, can’t cross.