South-Facing Window, Four A.M.

Sirens advertise
their right-of-way
on empty streets,

guards conjugate
in workbooks,
lobbies glisten.

Glass shatters,
voices carry,
pressure drops.

Entire buildings
perfect the parlor trick
of vanishing in fog.

Found, they’re gone
again, like that.
And so are you.

Finger moon
deveins the dark
as orbits cross.

Not a hiccup, not a hitch,
the moon’s gone too.

Klipschutz (pen name of Kurt Lipschutz) is a poet, songwriter and occasional freelance journalist, based in San Francisco. His new book of poems, This Drawn & Quartered Moon, was released by Anvil Press in April 2013.