Nocturne

The black air is heavy with sweetness
from unseen flowers,
stifling and free.
The breeze is free,
and the stillness,
but there is fear in forgotten feelings,
in lamplight pooling in my eyes and
flowers on my breath,
in a new me who is very old.
Shall I return
to the beige walls and the fluorescent lights,
my lonely night prison where overused thoughts
swirl pointlessly around my motionless body?
Shall I return?
Or shall I venture on
into the night,
the allurement,
put myself in danger for the sake
of a dream
and a borrowed power?
The wedding blossoms hang on the trees
in the lamplight,
beckoning,
and the God-made man-made-poet-made self-made night
sings me on my way.
Distant trains and midnight blue,
passing cars and melodious far-off screams
are lovely and dangerous.
I could wander on and on,
passing the strangers,
always in danger but never harmed,
because I could become
the summer night,
and have skin of air and
eyes of seeing light and
ears of hearing crickets
and be unseen.
Yet shall I return?
Even now I hesitate.
And all is sadness.