After Midnight

Working on the first three pages of the great American novel, I hit my first writer’s block, and wanting air I walked onto the porch. I felt you were restless too, up and thinking when we both should be in bed (together?). I have written so many words tonight and none of them seem to answer any of the questions. My restlessness, and the Siren-call of yours, brought me to put on my wool sports coat and boots and to start walking toward that sweet music. I was blocked and it must have been 1:15 AM, and the black ant I had been studying had just stood up and walked out the door as well, said he was off to work. I walked down the street, restless and lonely and thinking that seeing the neighborhood like this, at this time of the day might help cure some of these blues. I walked down past the rotting Gingko fruit, and stepped on the concrete carving and felt magic shoot through me, straight up my spine. I became fooled by the pedestrian signs in the road and mistook them for tiny men, standing still. They cast long shadows and I tilted toward them. And in my mind the trees were swooping just like they are in that scene toward the end of To Kill a Mockingbird. I walked past the cross-eyed cat and thought about the day that JT got ornery at low blood sugar. The dog bowl was not out, nor the bucket of treats. There was no one around and for awhile I thought I found my country. This is a city? I continued to walk down and took the liberty to cross not at the designated location. I dodged bulbing oak roots. I heard the Siren call still, and wondered if rocks were there to be crashed. Would I see two silhouettes on the shade? Would my life become a cheesy song? Should I have stayed in? For what? Do I want to know why you sing so sweetly tonight? Do you not sing sweetly for me? I am looking for home because the place of my departure has no heart any more, and the cliché says home must have that. I am going and going and I come past your door and pause and think of how close you are there. And I try to travel through the air. I try to levitate. I want to float there. I want to see in your window, see you sleep, but I am afraid that you are not alone, or that you are. I refuse myself the magic. I continue to walk toward a home that is out there somewhere. Just past where the Earth curves and I can see no longer, where the sun goes to sleep after a long day, and where I will finally lay my head as well.