This night a face I can’t see
Is walking towards me,
Coming down the hill. Must be a dark face,
Must look like me.
The sodium streetlight will give you depth
Wash over the space above your neck
Light up your eyeballs and a broad, flat nose,
Light up your lips that look like leeches pressed flat on your face.
When you’re closer we can
Put our leech lips together
Suck out a new life,
Red and beating, pounding like our footfalls.
Our syncopated footfalls, off-step,
As if one pair’s echo was snug inside the other pair
Like you found imprint of my path beaten in the air.
Stay with me, catch-up.
Stay as near to me as the night on my shoulder.
Press your hands against my cheeks, like this night’s wind.
You’re closer now
When you’re near enough to touch
Can I flesh-out your face with my thumbs and fingers,
Like a sculptor smoothing black clay?
We two night children, leech-lipped two,
And pull the street’s black asphalt to our chins for warmth
As if it were a satin sheet.