Centre Street Platform

The streetlights glitter

under an onyx-speckled sky,

Winter’s miniatures play stars for the evening

in the fabric of its dark velvet coattails

A classic nighttime attire,

draped like stage curtains

over a backdoor balcony

softens its lip 

to lace its fingers around the frosted tips of a breathless kiss

Beaded deliquescence,

soaking the shadows of a silent solace,

disappears with the arrival of another

period in an extended sentiment of a sentence…

and the words trail off without being spoken

like smoky Friday school afternoons:

ashen shapes spiraling out with every expiration,

hypnotizing the eyes of innocent desires

as if the mysteries of a heart’s phonetics

were whispered in each smoke ring.

A fevered pulse beats under the faintest voice

a pretty Girl’s heart swells in a Boy’s embrace

her departure impressing upon last night’s choice

his hands clasp around her waist like a corset enlaced - 

She should have practiced breathing.

Haunting the curves of a weary track,

the train ghosts into tomorrow

its chains clink sleepily

against the metal ground

as its wheels take rest between blankets of snow.

She waits behind the yellow of a do not cross

for a way out of fate

and her skeletons’ beds,

for a life that will blush her vacant heart red,

for the doors to sweep open

and release her from his touch,

for a present that could rewrite this instance as such.

She stares into the starry bodies

blinking from inside,

their lives thawing through every sealed window pane

like his smile in her eyes - 

She should have practiced crying.

Winter picks up the space between their warmth,

white flecks filling a translucent outline

of leaving footprints

heel to toes and heel to toes

her presence still lingers in the midnight dust

but the chimes have sung their goodbyes

and the yellow has turned to black

and the streetlights have closed their eyes

and taken the coattails off their backs

Winter’s miniatures have fumbled in their script

to crack the sky in this velvet eclipse

a canvas of white,

bursting from the only breathing heartbeat

out of this nighttime tuxedo,

the only heart beating off the centre street platform