A Portrait of Night

It is the night-time
which loosens our hearts from
the anchor of day
where everything
must hold
its own face
to the world,

but now,
now in the darkness
the senses descend like midnight mist

a palpable primordialness,

as if the ancient night has
dissolved all scales that deaden touch
and the scars caused by a shell
outgrown but not discarded.

And here,
here in the darkness,
we are adrift on the sea of formlessness,

able to perceive what lies