the night star runs from a cave
where inside lies a light buried
under limestone lakes�������its inquest

begins�����questions in a dirty winter
and snows that have been abandoned
to the street's grit

the dry nurse corrals the children
by her feet � away from cemetary relics
whose plastic flower markers

have been blown into the paths
of horse-drawn cars����a few bicycles
pass by unaware of the slow drip

building into stalactites under their wheels
the woman alone at home by her fire
reads hints of things to come in bits

of a broken goblet / connotations, import
significance, tenor / and is content
in the blown glass of roguishness

flushed through extruded waterways
she feels the tremor under her feet
of futures in watsonville strawberries

and gilroy garlic����hollowed ground solid
or not � let them all fall through
to clair de lune caverns where eyes

are tertiary and ears must eavesdrop
on the ticking of roach-steps�������pause
for a hush when the tap is turned off

and tomorrow is machines or the cold


�2005 by PJ Nights