Refraction

It was only at night we truly felt free.

Away from our daytime selves,
the ones put together out of too much illusion,
giving unknowing smiles in the supermarket aisles
over fresh heads of broccoli and piles of carrots
even though we'd been laughing together the night before
and evading colleagues' questions
over just why we couldn't stay late that evening,
even though those spreadsheets wouldn't write themselves.

As night pulled its cloak around us,
we were safe in ways we'd never been before,
to run and dance and fight and kiss
in abandoned landscapes reclaimed fiercely
by people in need of protection.

The old water tower with a barely locked door
became the site of a shivered truth-telling;
a disused marina welcomed us to dance
around old beer cans and plastic bags;
a barely accessible beach led to romances
and laughing betrayals that would mean little
in the cold light of morning.

We, the outsiders, born under the light spectrum,
not at ease with ourselves in the sun,
found refuge where the shadows lurked
and where nobody enquired too hard.