Lost Stars

          There’s something about the night. Late, hollow with the ticking hours. Seconds stretch out, step away from time to do a midnight dance on kitchen floor tiles, hop off the clock—and time stops.
          Somewhere, a girl is walking after midnight, singing an old Patsy Cline tune. Her voice, so heartbroken and lonesome, ringing out with done-me-wrong-but-oh-I-still-love-you in every note, melts like butter in the moonlight.
          Somewhere else, perhaps in some golden, long-ago time, but ever so present tonight, the ladies are arriving. Lovely ladies, gorgeous, glamorous ladies, with their hair in old Hollywood waves, step from shiny chauffeured cars in glimmering gowns, laden with beads and pearls, dripping with jewels, encrusted with diamonds, topped with fascinators and gold dust like fairies, shimmering, shining in the night.
          They join the lost seconds in their dance, sipping from long-stemmed glasses, bubbly drinks and light hearts, high heels clicking on a mirrored dance floor. They fly, bouncing and swaying to a band on the balcony, sweet young hours of the night watching over their play.
          Another somewhere, an old woman sits on her front porch, breathing in the night smells. The air is cool on her cheek; the streetlights are on, the moon softly glowing. Looking up, she wonders where the stars have gone tonight. Or were they gone yesterday too?
          She remembers nights when the darkness opened up to embrace her, wrapped its night arms about her, freckled with a million stars. Nights, thick and black like ink, that swallowed her whole, lost her, whisked her away to new worlds she feared but wanted, beautiful nightmares and sweet storms in the deep gulf of darkness.
          Exhaling the smells back into their night, she sighs. A starless sky, how sad.
          Through an open window, a Patsy Cline record plays. “I’m always walking after midnight searching for you…”