Reflections

Somewhere, a saxophone plays.
Centered in soft song, an orange blaze blossoms, falls to red.
Sharp shadow outlines hard angles of a harder man.
Cigarette illuminates in momentary maroons:
Black,calculating eyes, flecked with hidden hope,
inset jaw, squared with endless grief,
slight scar, belying buried past.
And all is gone, in a sigh of graying smoke.
Headlights pass, busy through this rough town,
cloaked darkness swims, shifts, swirling about leaning limbs
Fabric sags, expands, twists in the aftershock wind,
alternatively describing, embellishing, and hiding the waiting wanderer.
Again, darkness descends, and quiet returns.

All, save a disquieting tap, tap, tap.
Flashes pierce, eyes shift, lines straighten, and
blued steel bursts,
burning a hole through blackened silhouette.
Then
A clunk,
A fall,
and
a stunning silence.
Red lips, sweetly smiling, turn, and exit
in the tempo of an even
tap, tap, tap.