rapt

The engines rev and the fireworks ignite, fountains of sparks above the rooftops, the squeal of tires breaking traction on the shabby asphalt. The street is restless, the wind cuts loose, headlights reach and tail lights say so long. I smoke on my unlit porch, watching the world pass me by. Houses surrender to the shadows, a window here or there glaring at the night as it surrounds us all, as the shadows part and close. The show is over as the next one begins.

It’s well past my hour of retreat. I’ve tucked my mother in and mumbled a few mixed blessings upon the dogs, the report of incendiaries too much. I am on my third cigar of the day, the bright ember betraying my location, as if the backwash glow of the tablet screen weren’t hint enough. The sky sheds the last sops of the sun’s borrowed glory, moving through hues of purple and blue, colors I can’t quite identify until they are all but gone. The stars are still a matter of conjecture as the night seeps up into the firmament, every pinpoint gleam all happenstance until the constellations gel. I commit to the empty ritual, the unread words written upon the ersatz page. I light a candle or two as witness to the blackening blues.

This is my last illusion. This is the line I hold against all comers, the goers all but gone. Smoke billows from the cheroot I am sipping on, my tongue savoring the sacred as I profane any space I claim. The dreams I had are all but dead, no more love or companionship, no recognition save that of a credible threat, just burgeoning weeds and totaled out lungs. The world is savaged by greedy, selfish fools and incarnated demons devouring all that is good. My time has past, the rest of my days given to emptying piss pots and watching birds. But there is hope in our inheritors, the fighters and strivers and artists and poets. The disenfranchised making intractable demands that will be met, despite the stacked decks and tin star desperados, the dream of justice and equity alive in the blood and breath of the youth whose world has been held ransom for too long. These symbols and sigils nothing but another bad habit I am too stubborn to quit. Rapt beneath these stars, in the darkness I see hope.