Night Fires

Photo Jon Tyson Unsplash

The soft blow of the trumpet or
the strum of guitar strings cajole the uninterested
to see the hand-lettered sign,
the cigar box, the jam jar,
as the loyal dog curls in the doorway.
The deaf, the blind, the besotted, the luckless,
all night thieves of blankets,
sellers of wilted roses on a double white line,
ghosts on street corners who sidle through the rain
in search of some, in search of any
until a last breath taken among the silhouettes
of the night fires that lick at the black winter sky.