Vigil

*



We don't even fall like heroes,
matchstick figures in diorama cities

windows sliding open,
people walking fast
pigeons hit the wires
and the glass.

The laundromat's as dirty
as any restaurant.
Everyone wants
what everyone else
is breathing.

I light candles for this city.
No other window answers,
as if I'm mourning early
the vanishing length of night,
the dust on still walking shoes
and the jagged noise of streets
without music.


                                       

                                           -Brent Allard
previously published in Images From Ruin