Neon Night

my first attempt at a prose poem

In the whispered light of the common room at 3-something AM, the tv screen glowed, frozen, in front of our bodies
huddled on the couch, as another storm sauntered in, before the lightning from the last dissolved in the east.
Despite the thunder that rolled nearer with every crash, we slept, our faces inches apart, more soundly than before,
lulled by the air conditioner in the west window, or perhaps by whatever was between us in that electric midwest air.
the sky growled at intervals leaving only silence and neon sparks that flickered on our faces to fill the gaps. 

It would have looked like my room on a normal night, as the crime-camera on the corner of 91st street flashed incessantly
and cast neon red and white dancing shapes onto the makeshift drapes of my front window.
To the east, the vacant lot must have been so alive as the wind wound through the sea of golden grass 
that rose above my head that summer, thriving in the violent heat.
And the sea gulls in the canal certainly threw their heads back and cried out in what only sounded like wicked laughter
as the sky exploded with the rhythmic chaos of the rain.

At dawn, the rain hadn't yet died, but faded like the sky, who became a dismal gray that didn't seem right
next to a night so vibrant in every sense, including in our dreams. 
And perhaps the colorlessness of the world that morning was the reason for a newborn reality so black-and-white;
So indisputable and so very vivid.