Revisionist Poetry – Darkness Approaching, v.2

After the porch-lights gutter and laughter thins,
paper pumpkins sag on stoops — candy gone.
A thin moon slides out from under washed clouds,
pale as a coin pressed to a child’s palm.
Leaves skitter across asphalt, a dry applause;
a single crow crops the silence sharp.

Doorsteps sleep; small beds swell with sugar dreams.
In those rooms the dark is soft and small —
blankets a warm hill where monsters cannot climb.
Outside, the moon counts windows, patient as a guard,
its light skimming rooftops like a pale fingernail.

Shadows pool in gutters, slow as spilled tea,
and wind works the alleyways into a thinner script.
Every shutter holds its breath; every hedgerow listens.
Still the moon stays — watchful, useless and kind —
until the east thins to a pale promise and the ghosts
fold their sleeves and creep back into the night’s hems.