Fair Warning.

It was a fair-warning glow
near the end of certain death.
The bell handicapping a collared predator.
She was waiting, empty-armed for once,
under the shelter that hides the stars
but lays the blue-light paths bare.
And I felt sure that she was watching
from behind a veil of smoke
and the burn of that ember.

And I could feel her scrutiny
And my own surprise
at the lack of pressure.

But then her questions found me in the dark
like so much smoke trickling under door jams...
Hesitant, infirm –
And her eyes were just as big as ever,
But they’d been blinded by good faith,
And were this time a little less certain
of what she’d always claimed.

And if I’d forgotten about the pedestal,
The height swam up to meet me in that moment.

And I smiled in the dark,
Because I never meant for any of it to happen,
But I feel certain that this is one of those nights to remember.
This was one of those wild nights.