Junctionview

Dressed in white as samurai cats,
8 feet tall each of us
wielding lantern, bell, drum, fan

He wears a plant as his crown, leading us
martial arts robes flowing
in the darkness, they almost glow
masks of half-cat faces
surreal features don’t fit against ours,
we push them back to reveal our eyes
in the dark parking lot
we wander
as we are supposed to

At this height, my parasol
keeps getting caught in the lights inside
the busy warehouse gallery
my lantern wobbles, flickering
as we take the longer way around to avoid negotiating stairs

Various adults and children give us weird looks, yell things up to us;
drunk college students make off-color comments we aren’t meant to overhear
We cavort across the asphalt
beyond the edges of the streetlamps
around the edges of the crowds

We dance inhumanly: laughing and in silence, together and alone
through-out the evening into night
walking the same circle- through the building and out across the pavement
(until they come out with flames, hissing and spinning bright)
We tower unsteadily like insects or specters
graceful in strange jerkiness,
tall and white
we walk masked as spirits