the night has a thousand eyes
says that old chestnut, but
what if merely one hundred will do

do not pretend I didn’t see
I locked the evidence in a bank box
then went to visit it on an afternoon

whose sky was the blue
of a gun’s barrel, a shade
so bright it makes me sleepy

some of my lenses are still trained
on that metal bar as it slid from its recess
and some are turned toward the stars

that calmly watched me stay and stay and stay
until my need to stay was stayed
until one part of me strayed finally away