stop

trapped without an exit,
caught without a fire escape -
my mind brushes past an idle stare,
whispers to a door that isn't there;
calls past alleyways rushing by
to avenues dreaming their own distractions in the dark.

I pause - and the labyrinth smiles,
deflecting the gaze of wanderers
following faint threads of hope in the dark.

(at the stop,
the passengers nibble on fingernails
impossibly long in the dark...)

charon doesn't stop here -
nothing, no one does ...
not the old trolley cars singing with broken voices
of cloisters and sanctuaries abandoned in the dark.
and i sit waiting - forgotten and forgetting -
by the longrailed route to oblivion and the dark.