Night Knows

​
no excuses when, unlike the sympathetic
day, night chooses, induces a solitary
soul to look beyond itself, past the moonlit
hole it sleeps in till its emptied body 
trembles, beyond the unsparing darkness of  
knowledge unbidden in the moonlight of fear it 
resembles. When night knows no 
excuses, voices mock from everywhere
but here, taunts trailing in the road, too clear 
a dream to be anything but threatening. When 
night knows no excuses, you’re abandoned 
in your bed, first to keening cries 
of innocence you strain to hear, then to
failure’s glee, engulfing you in truths 
you cannot bear 
till the hour hidden from anywhere but 
here disappears with the night, dead and
bright, leaving nothing but light
excuses.

-first published in Unfettered Verse