6 o'clock: the poet's hour.
I pause at the sentried glassway
giving up my carapace
for another dangerous night
of living free.


The steelway of light ribbons past the sloth
on the footpath
empty and drunk.
The dim-eyed cafes blink wearily
past retiring couples
hand in clammy hand
past pools of orange light on the relentless asphalt.


And, men come and go
in serpentine trains of monochrome,
bobbing like weary atoms between sleep and waking.
I met old Possum in one such night of freedom
down the steelway of light
clogged with moving men
caught between one nothingness and another.


I saw him do a jig
and disappear—
a smiling clown
doffing his hat
at a rancid sea of men.

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