Shadow Universe

In the city gardens
street lights flicker to life
illuminating the darkness
in spreading circles like clocks.
These shadows move like second hands,
marking the perimeter, fencing it in,
or else to join and bridge the dark
with light, hovering over flowers,
colliding with their neat rows,
unbidden, uninvited, rudely intruding,
unfolding like a faceless spring.
People and lovers crowd the spaces.
They perform their roles, projecting
a swollen reflection of loveliness
or else dwelling in the well of themselves.
None see the light playing games
with their shadows, tangling, cradled,
wrapping around, about each other like snakes
and vines and chains and passion flower,
broken by their careless hosts, musing, lost
inside themselves. Inside the spreading light,
floating like streams of pulsing planets, just barely,
it rises to the surface: a small shadow universe,
bursting with florals, alive with nameless intent,
festival ghosts in the forests of the night.
In the city streets, alive with noise,
people crowd the garden, blind
to the universe spreading at their feet.
The dark and light can barely contain their joy,
concrete superimposed, already aglow
with galaxies, the low-soul halation
of this lush, dreamlike world.
Hiding in the darkness, their full-
bodied selves dance, falter,
and start. Pulling together
or coming apart.