KIMBER
The Verspertine Rituals
Late afternoon light narrows it’s eyes and warms the leaves’ edges with a sparkled blood-dipped crimson wash,
Vespertine shadows wrap themselves in a deeper blue and hide from the suns’ glancing beams,
In each backyard squat barbecues, singed and fat stained sit rusting in wait for the next burnt offering,
Silence falls and spreads itself thickly along the streets, only far off sprinklers pulse with white noise in the distant evening haze,
Invisible wounds sulk quietly in the dim corners of all and wait,
Wait for the thin membrane that separates worlds to rupture, wait for the rituals to begin,
light falls towards the horizon as the street lights awake from their daylong slumber, pushing their orange-yellow cascade outwards leaving pools of vague semi-darkness between them and twilight reigns it’s brief monarchy over all,
The moon begins its arch into the emergent night scattering faint stars in its wake across a bruised purple sky,
A water tower, a black bulbous tripod set against the pearl-white luna orb looms as a monstrous spider over the cowering trees of the park,
each begins their journey through the darkness, cloaked in the protective anonymity of paper, paint and synthetic store-bought hair,
Distant trucks roar like forgotten caged lions as they shift gears in lowering modulated tonal moans negotiating the descent to the highway’s end,
A borrowed face forged from less transient flesh hangs before our eyes, gossamer-frail torn from the tissues of memory and worn anew,
Now trick or treat here then repeat after me,
I’ll carve your name and on that name I’ll kiss thee,
what falls in the suburbs lies lost in these trees,
Lies fallow this night between the space where we breathe,
And if we shadows have offended
While stars have rolled in ellipse descended
We walk this night, ‘cross worlds in slumber
Through fevered dreams beyond all number