Day 42: The Walk I Didn’t Take

It’s late.
There is a film over the full moon.
like a glaze over my eye.

The heat of summer coming
is seeping into spring nights
and makes thick the air tonight.

I want to walk.
I want to be over sidewalks
and under street lamps
and strolling without aim.

I want to talk.
about all the things that are,
and none of the things
that could be,
should be,
won’t be,
can’t be.

I want to feel steady in my pace again.
I want to practice, here in the dark
-stepping strong steps-
so I might stride in the light.

I want to laugh.
at what you say
and how you say it.

I want to be silent.
and hear the things
we cannot say with words.

But I did not take that walk.

The night moves, still,
and into morning
and the humid hazed halo
turns into light dawn blue.

The heat will come with sun,
and the day brings too much duty,
and I’ll forget

perhaps

the sweet earth smells of peony and grass
that filled my senses when
I stood out there,
in the night,
alone,
and thought about the walk I’d like to take

and didn’t.

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