The Mayor of the Night

Joshua Hagy

 

Some nights, I’m up later than I mean to be,

staring gritty-eyed into the darkness, caught

up in a silent witching-hour conversation

with The Mayor of the Night.

 

I’m wary, for his smile is the dangerous kind

of crooked best left alone, but conjuring demons

is far easier than banishing them, and in the lonely

depths of weary wakefulness, the temptation to

 

trade absolution for answers is damn near

more than I can bear. You see, I’ve never really

feared the dark, only Who’s in it, for He has taken

my measure with greater certainty than I ever will.

 

The faith of a mustard seed can move mountains,

but doubts more miniscule than a spark of life are

all it takes to pin me in place like a butterfly to a

board. No one likes to admit monsters have

 

faith too, and I often wonder if God finds it ironic

that monsters have no uneasy questions forming cautious

boundaries holding them back from whatever nefarious task

they lay a hand to. I want to know why the shadows deepen when

 

The Mayor smiles, and why they feel more coldly

comfortable than my blanket, but the cost of finding out

is steep, and sometimes I’m so disappointed in daylight that

I fear there are no answers in the night.

 

 

***

Joshua Hagy is a high school English teacher looking for his first break as a poet. He didn’t know anything about poetry until he had to study it in order to teach it. He was fortunate enough to have a class of extraordinary young poets who taught him how to write it. When he isn’t teaching, he’s at home with his wife, Bethany, and their two dogs, Jayce and Burrfoot. What free time he doesn’t fill with reading and writing he spends in search of the perfect taco.