The Night
Conversely, the mask of cool sojourns
amid groves silent aside from the wind.
How soft and smooth like fallen blossoms is its coat,
how articulate its gestural havens,
eyes fixed on prey that tastes of the gutter.
Those eyes could hold a multitude of painted afternoons.
An almost unnoticeable
scent lingers between the bed
and the coffin.
The arching of acrobatics, the skittering, the stalking.
The self-imposed silence.
Cries of hurt sharper than a ravaging claw
countered by the heady enticement of the gilt frame.
Those secrets remain unsaid:
it watches: in its quiet, the night.