Night Child

I stride the edges of the night
Past spector fields of shadow grain,
Through concrete neighborhoods that leach
The souls from lives whose timid reach
Extends no further than the drains,
Fleeing terrors born in light.
Blackness fills crevices like caulk,
Smoothing the daytime's gape-edged wounds:
Garroted dreams, hopes drowned in bile
From razored tongues in rictus smiles.
Emerging darkness soft surrounds
My race to find release and balks
At nothing; even dawn, full-blown
Cannot contend now with Night's own.