New In Town by Julie Finch

The street lamps like the beggars
Ask you to empty yourself
To them, silently judging as you pass.
Nothing is mercurial here;
It is the same terrain you have trekked
Night after salubrious night, walking home
Alone, the stone that you carry
A deep seated gut feeling there will be more
Of these to come, longing in her gray.
Wild boys from the gay bars enter in glee
And exit in pairs, the sky is no less lonely
For the taking, but the beauty of the moon
With only a fiver in your pocket is not
Something you had counted on setting out
The way you did to discover your own passing.
You sway from the booze and cigarettes
That will lead back to a story of this:
Night and its prescience,
Night and its conscience,
The darkness some kind of reverie that
Will pass unafraid through the tapestry of strangers.
What good are stories here?
Take a picture instead, and leave it on the fridge
To remind you that the city has a heart;
It may be gutless, but it has a sense of forward
Motion that takes you farther than you intend.
Go now to where you belong, in between the 
Stars and mercy.