Tenebrae
Nightfall on the sill. Trinkets, hardened dust. Sky
in the gaps of a broken comb – the medley
of towers, antennae. The city: a queue
for dinner at a swish place, or a catwalk.
Thoughts of not doing an evening by halves –
not dress circles or crystal filled in series,
only forgetting the rule of doubt for hours,
leaving morning till morning, whole vacancies.
This sill, monogrammed by wine rims. A living.
Rest from studying the pavement in silent lines,
from the cold communion, aid. Frail-voiced
nuns chant responses from behind gilt fences
through the workless days. They reach some in the street,
who look in, down a ribcage of coloured light,
high rafters, canopy – a keyhole vision
of dusk between towers, that toothed horizon,
a light that breaks our outline, hides our numbers.
