The lights come on and it's still not dark.
Shop windows light-up their mannequins.
Saw-toothed roofs of black terraces
are silhouetted in front of a fading sky.
Around the back of the high street
a few pale yellow window rectangles
take their colour from nearby lamps.
Another one or two are cold pastel blue
as though they were cut out of the sky.
The bright cold day sets on the horizon,
its hemline muddied to fagash grey.
In the supermarket carpark drivers wait
while headlights swing by, silently.
--
Stephen Moran
