Song Of The Night Woman Poem by LaClaire mitchell nzerem

Empty footsteps click across
the wet sidewalk, faceless people pass.
Cabs honk by and splash the feet
where hookers cuss at the curbs of streets.

Empty footsteps come to call
at the creaking doorway down the hall.
In a room that hisses of pungent mold,
the plaster crumbles from mildewed walls.

She waits in a tattered robe of white
on an unkept mattress in the night.
Through the window she hears the worried dog call.
A cat picks up his pointless howl.

He holds on in wild embrace,
he comes a man without a face.
The dollars down from cold embrace,
she turns to the window to hide disgrace.

The empty echo leaves the hall
of shadowed footsteps as they fall.
Away and further into dark,
two lovers embrace in the park.

LaClaire Mitchell-Nzerem (Cader Publishing, first pub (review magazine July 27-July 16,1990 pg.11) .