the night walk

how dangerous she felt that night!

with her smokers and her miscreants
roaming her streets in the not-morning dark
arguing and laughing, idling in cars
watching us tentatively walking past—
how fearsome, unwholesome, alive.
her daytime soulless sidewalks bristled
threatening and adventurous: our paths
tumbled from our steps with glances back.
one bright walking bridge over nothing
ended in a lightless patio; the only sound
hip hop blasting from a parked SUV.
“i didn’t think wineries used vats like those,”
i commented stupidly, to hear my own voice;
and you peered at me with pensive beauty,
doe eyes over carefully pursed lips, watching.
our steps were never hurried, fears never named,
like in everything. a final balcony cigarette—
“do you want a shower?”—and then sleep
tucked into one of her many heights: safe, for now
and in the morning, with danger seeming far away
we comment lightly: “this looks familiar,”
but the light of our adventure in the night is fading
and we are left with only recollected fears nearby.
so it goes! i’d always rather take the midnight walk
in her seeming dangerous shadow time
than stay inside and shrug away our life.