Tianli

Tonight on the streets she watches darkness fall

to a closed layered horizon, below skies below stars

she’s watched for. Sprawled over a back curb,

waiting, a Bic lighter held close for heat.

Warmed, she observes fireworks spark.

In awe admiring it all while bursting color

explodes, streaking above, forging a deep

silent line in the sky.

                                                Sometimes the night

too becomes chaos, a reverberating fiery shroud.

Speaking to a cavern from where shadows

will flow, she’s a sound echoed tight. Being

dragged like Persephone down deep, an example

which death must show, extinguished by light.

Then an off-pitch nightingale breaks through.