these november sunsets
have christened the impending days
they turn the skies from
cyan glass
to fevered pink
like the cheeks and neck
of a young, lovesick daughter
and her rosy blushing bleeds
into the richest purple
as midnight creeps closer
and settles deeper into her
freezing through and through
until finally
love's fire is snuffed out
and the clouds have gone gray
thin and long like phantoms
paled against their murky heaven
and left reaching after the horizon:
gilded and omnipotent
bathing every worshiper at its hem
in its blazing golden light
even that god must fade away
into the sands of time
that glitter across the dusky dome
each and every faithful night
they sink into our realm
to wink beside the grinning moon
guiding the wandering ghosts
on their weary ways
to that exalted hour of dusk
or dawn
or whichever may find them first
as I wind about the hazy tree lines
made two-dimensional
by the lengthening dark
i watch them
assimilating into those woods
which curl about the houses
like tendrils of smoke
even that smoke must dissipate
much like myself in their lot
the sentry street lamps
always spy me
and send me back home again
the sleepy lights blink
like my own bleary eyes
from the orifices of houses
one by one they go out
clearing the path
for the spirits above
who slink and sleuth about
this plane when no one else
may see
i catch a brief taste
on the frosty gale
and in the corner of my eye
on the outskirts of
the pervasive suburban glow
i glimpse a descending cloud
taking the shape
of a sorrowful soul
trapped in its eternal search
for gold
and in that moment
i am filled with horror
to see my reflection
in the thin ice below
surrounded by an entire sky
filled with ghosts like me:
meandering
through familiar places
where they could never be
lost and still
find themselves without a home
or a dream
to make their hopes
worth something
more than an unspoken wish
to a falling star so far above
to have already crashed and burned
for time's fickle sands
are scattered so far across
the universe
that this november sunset
might as well be my curse
