When you realize
it’s Saturday morning, not
Friday, and you give yourself

permission

to fall asleep again.
When you wake
for the second time

to begin (for real) the last
day the sun will set
after 5 pm for months

and that extra hour
is no consolation
for early evening

darkness

that holds your truest
secret contradiction:
how you crave the pitch

far from city lights
in the unfathomable sky
and deep within the deepest

urban tunnel with all its safety-
pinned graffiti you fear most.
And the cold

wind blows through an open
window on the 11th floor
of the Hotel Chelsea

22 years ago. When you confess
you like dark better,
and the sweat of the dance

alone

calls you home.
When you give yourself
permission to forgive

how you were clinging
to the bottom
made of heated liquid

sand. Then you realize
it could not have been civil
twilight the first time we kissed.