more candles in college courtyards

she slipped away
before passing me
on a street just
a ghost like many others
all seconds of the day
passing into some
existence where
movement resides
out of sight after an
ephemeral exit,
an opaque process,
and there are
no cross outs in my
date book to prove this
proximate
stepping out slipping away
just flickering candles
and the saxophone's
wail. (the night sky then
briefly fell under dreams
of oceanic wonderfalls
and celestial dark
clatter and poetic spring
rain.) it is always
night if you close
your eyes, you know,
the sun may also rise
but there is
no steady rise of the
sun when erratic
motion of eyelids
enclose but also
expose the
splattered paint
of a starry sky. the college
years ought to be bright,
strings of moments when day
is chosen with a swollen
breath, a beating heart,
charged with caffeine
and ticking with motion
until it suddenly stops
shattered glass on the face
of the clock, a mug on the counter,
untouched,
crashes to the floor. i don't
understand this, really i don't,
but i know i miss
the clock that broke, the
coffee left brewing in the kitchen,
the sound of a pocket phone
buzzing but not picked up, the
ghosts that never passed me
on the way to class.

dls