The Solar System

I could only ever like the night that was made of city lights
- that isn't pollution,
it's safety -
it's all the romance of twilight
for eight hours a day,
shattered across a thousand windows.

It's two degrees warmer when you're in the middle
of all that breathing, and the shadows
are smooth, inoffensive shapes.

It's one blanket less
per lamppost, per annum
as the light tends away from
madness
toward a fine white sheet.

It's bringing the sun
that little bit closer,
so you don't have to sleep
so hard,
or so tightly,

or at all,
ever

again.


(i am trying to rest at a busy junction. eight lamps look at me lying there, like eight planets so close to the earth and all wanting the same thing)





April 2010