STREETLAMP AND TIN LEAF

Nightly here by the public garage I

shine your pale sheen to cold, slick life.

So cautiously your glimmerings begin flashing from

the metal you’re made of, that fatigues like the look of the buildings

in the empty, perfect distance nothing can fill

and nothing crosses. I’d like to brighten

you to real-life feelings. I’d never harm you;

I’d just like to turn your mesh of sharp

grievances to steady shining. But I don’t know how

to melt you down to live again, not trembling in rush hours.

Your blurred, wet reflections laugh at simple me,

unlikely to dazzle, and yet you’re so tired of shimmering.

Once in white heat you melted and formed a tearless tear

and a puff of white smoke. Against despair you played

in shattered light. Emptiness held neither struggle nor pain.

What comfort am I, dim shining that I am.

I’d dry the raindrops on your skin, pass

the dank evenings with you, not fire and scar.

I just want to talk until your original love of light

is not a mistake, to glow with you against the hectic dark.