There Is No End to the Strength of These Creatures of Midnight

my modesty cannot bear that particular type of compliment 
how time’s dry hollowness is so preferable to it being filled with unremarkable things 
the inevitable ordinary things one accumulates in a life 
littered with the people with whom I have hid and have tried and failed to protect 
who have suffered the strings of my obscure remorse 

there is never enough
it is at night in the room full of fans and distant traffic that I hear them 
the voices of sick animals whimpering in the brittle blackness 
they nudge me awake unwilling to see how they frighten me 
there are clues to that loneliness in every unexpected thing one unexpectedly sees

NEIL AZEVEDO

Neil Azevedo published a book of poems, Ocean, in 2005. His poems have appeared in many periodicals, such as Antioch Review, New Criterion, Prairie Schooner, and Paris Review (where he shared the Bernard F. Conners Prize for Poetry in 1998). He currently owns a music-themed lounge in Omaha called Vive le Rock!