Come dusk till dawn

Of a Sunday eve, all shops are

Clam-closed, late shoppers bereaved.

Business be business, we say, and

Business be done, whether by light

Of candle, stars or sun.

But there is a pact, you see

Signed not in blood or ink

But in greed and glee

Sunday is sacred, or so the Bible says

For it was the first time God’s mum

Made Him make His bed.

It’s twilight of the week.

It comes before

Or thereafter

Depending on which way you think

A threshold of forward or back

No door, no lock, all barriers cracked

And where there’s a threshold, Things

Are bound to step through

Whether or not you want them to.

Business be business, truth tells, and

Business be theirs, those sons of God

And those the Devil did snare.

Come now the winged-ones,

The scuttle-scales, the serpent-tongues,

The whippet wails, the bright stars, fallen and hung.

The angels, with spirit-forged swords and

Broad-shoulder wings, shoo the stragglers out

And mumble vague warnings about

Fire insurance and wouldn't it be a shame

If God's wrath, yea, verily, didst come down and

Holy fire didst burn the poor, tinder-dry shop to the ground

More they all come to where business is done, for

Closing time is carousing time for those from beyond.

There’s much to be gambled, traded, wagered, won.

The bright ones find old foe, old friend alike

Among the demons, who wheedle and wheeze

As they slither and sly with graceless ease.

The holy and fallen do barter and jibe

Haggling the prices of mortal lives—

The fate of husbands, children, wives.

They use our grounds, our buildings, our rent,

For business unseen and a motley host convened

To rival the chaos of a circus tent.

Woe to the one whose shop light gleams late.

Those who ignore the pact

Tempt their own fates.

For worse than the faeries is the cunning and wiles

Of angels and demons, in righteous guile

Cloaked in light and sin and smiles.

Many the mortal has vanished in the dark shops and

Hours when princes and powers gather to exchange

Debts, gifts, and a little loose change.

Business be business, they know, and

Business be damned, when the ledger and stock

Of two worlds mesh like waves on sand.

Mind the pact. Make way, make way,

Or else there’ll be heaven

And there’ll be hell to pay.

Pardon and punishment are swapped in tireless trade.

This is why shops

Close early on Sundays.