Act I

Evening cannot fully digest its own seeds
or come to terms with its darker progeny
so choking on each bite it devours
what came before,
what it knows as simple prey.
And day grows old in its father’s mouth
until even upon a stepladder light
can no longer reach the highest cupboards
where we keep our forgiven sins.

Act II

The simple savagery of dishrags evening wraps around night
so night must read us through blindfolds, human Braille.

It seems unjust to align the stars night gives
with all we’ve put off for another day
as it endlessly seeks in its silhouettes of trees and ships
a convergence of our languages,
a shared definition of tomorrow.

The kitchen sink is overwhelmed with dreams
conceived without an architect.

Act III

Day shrugs off the myriad layers of things
and the layers of words we’ve placed around those.
It expects the conversation will continue through night
with the purpose of fire and the purpose of stone.
But evening, so uncertain, throws us shadows against cave walls.
Bless their little dreams, it repeats,
for they too begin and end, and so night ends
in the shadows we’ve thrown, unfulfilled, against it.

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