Midnight Pockets

I think we got lost

in sidewalk oil slicks,

the same metallic rainbow

in your eyes when you cry.

Heads bent to the grey pavement

we wandered nightly

through the narrow alleys,

watching the skyward fire escapes

as they bent to lift us

-the metal claws of god.

Heavenward

our lost bodies were thrust.

The cosmic bodegas

blazed their neon 

into our weary eyes;

their faded awnings

flapping in the changeling breezes.

We wanted to fly,

our arms in their lusty stretching

to become constellations.

But the hands of the 

metal railings rusted;

we were falling down the stairs,

head over heels with our

own starry-eyed visions 

of heavens, unopened.

Instead we crumpled 

in the puddles reflecting

the neons in their gaudy pink

hues and dirty blues.

We gathered our burning limbs

and painted our faces

with the bodega drainage.

Our blazing faces

with warrior stripes

of the wandering fallen.

Our eyes bent skyward,

hands shoved in our

lonesome midnight pockets.