Gasoline Night
by Layne A. McClure
Night settles like a veil over the city,
Tangles itself in my feet.
Car headlights blind, leave echoes of light on eyelids;
The fumes linger
and exhaust flavors the air, like licking gasoline.
Grinding gravel fills the air with its angry sound,
Concrete curb beneath fingerJps scraping over unfinished edge.
The silence tastes like bitter mint in the back of my throat
Like Heath Ledger dying alone in an apartment in New York City, by himself and lost.
A shoulder leaning heavy against my body,
An inch of distance but we’re separated by eternities.
The constellation Orion glitters above, as he pulls back his bow & prepares
to let loose arrows towards unseen foe.
I want to ask Orion if we’re fighting the same war,
But atheist’s prayers still go unanswered.
The eternal stone of our psyche skips across the water of the puddles left around,
Can’t or won’t move, trees taking root through concrete earth,
Branches reaching towards a lightening sky,
Newly formed buds straining to scream.
I rip out my vocal cords by way of my heart, fling them at my feet and laugh.
An ending can be a beginning if you don’t talk about the pain.
Icarus is here to drag us into the sun,
And I’m going to be talking to this silence for the rest of my days.
And in my palm I cup an ephemeral night, keeping it close.
The rising of the sun will put us back in the shadows.
The morning reaches for a cup of coffee, the night a sleeping pill.
Gasoline in my mouth and night veil at my feet.
University & College Poetry Prizes Page