David McLean

tripping over brackets


we trip over the brackets
around the pure perception,
and, inside me,
all cats are gray

like flags over the castle
where nothing lives
innocent oblivion.
all cats are gray,

and time at night
is painless, where evening
has stroked away
twilight anxiety

and consecrated the cold
to being and absence,
that icy absolution
time brings, like nothing,

here where all cats are gray,
and so are most days