Night Watch Stone

The engine hummed a low, tired tune,

past the iron gates, past the broken moon.

Headlights cut through the humid dark,

slashed across a row of granite teeth,

cold and pale.

Each name a story, stopped.

The city’s pulse, a distant thrum,

didn't reach this far,

just a faint, greasy glow

on one smooth, polished stone.

A single, blind eye, watching nothing,

seeing everything.

It watched the night turn,

the stars too shy to hold their ground,

and the silence, heavy,

press down on the car’s roof,

on my own chest.

Making me just another marker

moving slowly

through the quiet,

with no one left to read the inscription.