into the night

Into the Night

I ramble over pressed concrete
aside asphalt plastered thin over dirt,
and under trains overhead.
I cling to the few steps left to my door –
I remember the time I lose.

I ramble, through the sounds as I sit here.
Lone car speeding by, and now the shuttle
hurling towards me and then
percussively coming to a slow stop,
sounds of letting off steam, a short squeal,
and it whispers off I assume for I don’t hear it anymore.

I ramble, with my eyes out this window,
up the brickwork across the way to the lighted windows,
shades parted, fluorescent light from within.
Their neighbor above them has gone to bed.
Orange floods in through the slats in the fence and
I remember gold concrete swaths painted by rain,
that morning I woke up to need to shut the windows.

I ramble through my memory of that morning,
and I remember what it felt like to wake up alone.
I walk to my bedroom for no particular reason,
at least I had forgotten by the time I arrived –
my train of thought derailed
as I passed the open window in the living room
hearing a woman in ecstasy.  Two long moans,
reverberating off that brick and concrete.

I ramble to the window in my imagination
and the world is darkened by the night
but illuminated by the orange and white.
There she is through the slats in that window,
through the Venetian blinds, see her figure?
No, maybe she’s in the apartment right above?
But the sound is gone now and she would remain a sound.

I ramble in the silence of this night,
and another train passes
hurling then slowing like a flap in tap dancing.
A sixteenth note followed by an eighth.
Fa-lap, fa-lap, fa-lap, fa-lap.
The shuttle train is only two cars long.

I will ramble in a moment,
over pressed concrete and asphalt
plastered thin over dirt, clinging to the unknown –
remembering the time I lose while rambling
and rambling and rambling into the night.