Halogen bleaches
night’s black fabric,
whitewashes the dust.

Redeyes jet the milk
like backswimmers,
and their breathings

become a landscape.
The open-mouthed
and force fed tunnels

scattering aerosols.
The illuminated city,
turbine-soundtracked.

What is washed out—
stars, slow satellites
pivot behind scrim.

In a public park, I lay
flat like a photograph
developing, adapting

to dark like Purkinje
in his geranium field.
I should not be out

so late, in the least-
lit suburban nook.
Restless and curious,

I run a long line
until it adapts to dirt,
until I, in tall grass,

lost and a trespasser,
jump the barbed wire
binding some acerage,

a radio tower, tumble
and gasp on my back
at the baroque ocean

overhead, and to no one,
say I want to be closer,
and climb the latticework.