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NIGHT WALKS

 

Not sixteen, I swam the streets

half searching for you, yet to be named.

 

In drowned windows saw—what?

Siren wives and door rudders?

White hope, wrecked encrustations?

 

Where corners elided I chose

up-current,

streetlamps straining their hawsers.

 

In shop doorways saw you reflected,

and mannequins, fathomless angles.

 

From the docks, above dark gantries,

the moon tugged, a different element.

 

On the way back, down Lake Road,

an abattoir smell, but not sinister.

 

Home.  Dried my face at the sink.

    

Alan Marshfield

    

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