a strange opening to nighttime

when the night owl purrs from
a tree, branches folding darkly in,
you stand there in the darkness
silently, waiting for me to notice
the white glow as it washes away
the fallen stars from your hair.
its beak creaks and echoes
somewhere deep inside of us.
and this is our life,
the night:
her long veil sifting behind her through the air,
her darkness expanding and contracting
like an eye,
and her soft tinkle against the moon and the stars
reverberating in the alleyways
of the sky,
surreptitious and always distantly sad—
another muffled sob,
another tender cry—
her black cape washing over the city,
the concrete grayness of it,
in twinkling, varnished felt that wraps around our bodies,
those trembling bulks that burn
white lights into the darkness.