Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels.
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
We drift beneath the yellowed lamps,
Where shadows lean on brick and smoke,
And time slips sideways through our hands
Like something neither said nor spoke.
Footsteps echo half a thought,
A question almost brave enough,
The city breathing in short lines
Of coffee, rain, and quiet bluff.
Windows glow with borrowed lives,
Laughter thin as paper walls,
Faces pass without a name,
Each one listening for a call.
The night rehearses what we fear,
Then forgets it just as fast,
Leaving us to trace the cracks
Where future leaks into the past.
I measure courage in small acts:
A glance that lingers half a beat,
A sentence folded back again
Before it dares to find its feet.
The world keeps ticking, suitably,
While we postpone the vital turn,
Circling truths we almost touch
And lessons we refuse to learn.
So let us walk a little more,
Not toward answers, not quite home,
But through this pause between the lines
Where wanting learns to live alone.
If there is meaning, let it wait—
It knows this city, knows the way.
Tonight is only you and I,
And words we’ll almost say.