Icy concrete and the smokering circle

Invitation to four-twenty north:
to huddle together on the steps and breathe in
the same clear cold, to talk hot and
strong in a smokering circle
and fall asleep on a soiled Persian rug
(the mudstained one where we wiped the early-autumn storm
from our boots),
wrapped in prickly dirt-brown hospital blankets
that smell like dish rags and detergent.

But no--
I excused myself, stole away
to instead stand on my own porch, where
the lights are strung up as always, like Christmas
(but it's hardly November).
And the trees south of me are dark;
they are deserted and empty with capillary limbs, and
I shut my burning pink sticky eyes
and dream of them, those long naked arms--
how they miss their fallen leaves,
rotting in heaps on the ground underneath,
eating calico patterns of wet soil through the lawn and
turning the air mossy-sweet and pungent all the same.

I sit cross-legged
to will words and worlds into creation;
to spin storms, whirling winds through my mind.
I am the conjurer--
but there is strength in my disillusion,
my futile stabs at inspiration.
Because it is a blind, frightened voice
that enchants me and I am powerless--
a siren calls to me from out of doors,
a chanty emanates from some midnight ship,
some crosstown train--
and because of my inertia
I am subject to it all.

I should reconsider, go in search of
icy concrete and the smokering circle,
twenty-five degree night.
I should smile and sleep shivering atop that navy green
woolen throw-rug with the tassels, next to
the muddy Persian.
Their doors are still unlocked;
there is room yet for me,
yet
I am reticent.
I am that leafless tree.