Flickering Porch Light

On a wild dusk of crickets in the late evening blue,
from the screen door to the thickest-settled backstreets flew
this beacon out the front porch like a lonely light
that guides us young travelers of the night
and helps the twilight critters see the darkness through,
(who are no more lost in these backroad drives
than the sailors by the lights at sea)—
And it’s been signaling its marquee to anything around it sees
that, “tonight I flicker, by morning I’m free.”

The king of twilight
blinks porch boards blind to wake up
a slave to a switch.

So meet me at the crossroads to this primeval glow
that beckons us by brain for which it hungers so,
on the electric highway of this nighttime refugee,
and for your fear I’ll give you sight to see
through the summer evening winds that blow,
and ears to hear the crickets sing songs
composed of harmonies from a thicket by the tree,
and a voice to utter not one more word to guarantee
that, “in twilight I’m blinded, by moonlight I see.”

To kids of the night—
sent to Earth to deliver
a newer sunrise. 

--Poems from the Sprawl

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