Nightscape

There's people here, out on the streets at night.

That is enough itself to make me glad.

They glow themselves, without the aid of light

And loosen what I hadn't noticed had

Grown tense. I'd almost say it's sad

How quickly everything falls into place:

I'm standing taller. I feel like a cad,

Cheating on the city I'd replace

That doesn't run this kind of nighttime race. 

It's not it's fault. But there are people here 

Refusing to cede night the public space:

No emptiness. No darkness. And no fear.

Even here they sleep sometimes, of course,

But by free choice, and not by night's brute force.

rara y familiar

The bones are still the same. Only the bones;

The flesh is strange and new, and stretched too wide 

But underneath the skin, still something owns

Its past, and while I cannot say "with pride"

It doesn't seem embarrassed. It is changed:

I constantly encounter something new

In my perusal, and I feel deranged

Each time I rearrange what once I knew.

Some things are subtle; some hit in the face.

And I of course have changed as well, though I

Do not believe the bones have noticed. Chase

The past, and you will only live to die.

The bones are still the same. It's a relief 

If they changed too, I might just drown in grief.