Walking Home by: Emmanuel S. Torres page divider

At midnight I and a stranger drowsetoward separate homes.
The crunch of small stones underfoot
reminds us how far we are

from each other, although our shadows
would include each other more
than once, streaming forward
from the streetlight behind us

brightening the loneliness
of the steps toward sleep.
At the fork of the road, we part
ways, deepening into night.

How we are closer now,
brothered by night's darkness and beasts
of solitude on all fours.
Each bush is thick with shadow brows

of thieves and the unloved wind
blows my hair to let me in
on its curious passion
for prodigals.  As from tree stones

harden away and from stones my heels,
I think of what I have done
or not done, of what I am supposed
to repent to the night that has

small power to absolve.  Frogs
croak across my wayfaring,
persisting upon my will to walk
not past the life whose sakes

could be mine to share piecemeal out
to others.  Stars are in their places,
naturally, and have nothing to give,
only beauty, although I have

wronged lives and my own least name
walking more than miles
away from those I would love
and strangers to whom I have given

false directions.  Yet I take
courage from one light bulb
left burning at the backdoor
of a house no batwing black

can foul, canceling all thought
of stars, their strange violence
and stranger absences.
It will not blur in my storm:

one light god fathering
tracks back to worn thresholds,
not furthering the cause of darkness
in, but my makeshift life,

another only try
to brighten the four corners
of what I have and set straight
my room's several wayward lines