The Blue Moon Review

Travelling Light
by Ellen Davis

A light in the top floor of the apartment
across the street encases us. The tallest pine,
chimney with no smoke, inn for the ill children
encases us. Close to dark at three in the afternoon,
a metallic sky encases us. We build a surround
impervious to tincture. (The silence encases us.)
Why go outside? Only to find more empty
and boarded up buildings, signs with singed edges,
unreadable lettering. Why walk the streets?
Even in the well-lit districts, the bearded
homeless man asks us twice -- we pass him going up,
returning down the avenue -- "Can you spare a quarter?
A dollar? Twenty-five cents?" in that high-pitched
undiscouraged voice. Will to believe.
Engine of change. We shift on our heels,
study the menu at Texas Antelope Bar & Grill.
Red and silver lights at dusk encase us.