by Vonnegut Frey

 

The night here outlines the lights,

that crawl onto the concrete like spotlights

revealing endless tiny details.

The quietness makes the sounds that are here 

so much louder, like a megaphone. 

You can almost hear where it isn’t dark

across the sea, where people are getting up 

in the morning— excited, tired, distressed.

You can almost hear friends talking at lunch,

eating sandwiches.

The sky is so dark.

Darker here than anywhere else.

The absence of stars 

makes you forget about the relativity of time;

how billions of light-years away, life emerged and died.

Civilizations rose and fell.

Infinite little thoughtful moments like this pass

in a single second.

And for them, humanity evolved and died.

My life has already passed without incident.

Infinite little moments that are yet to come have already happened for them

in a single second.