Blue Hour

I didn't mean to come here.

I just walked until the sidewalk ended

and the wrought iron bars took over,

shadows leaning long across the mown grass.

A floodlight over the maintenance shed

catches the plastic petals of a wreath,

making the fake lilies look more alive

than anything else in this zip code.

Behind a row of granite slabs,

a solar stake light is gasping out its last charge,

a weak blue flicker against a name

that I can't quite read in the dark.