Lines at Seven Thirty

In a curtained morning twilight,
dull fingerprinted crystal from the night before.
Evaporated wine,
thick crimson painted on a finger,
then sweet on the tongue.


Out here, surveying a semi-detached estate,
mug of tea in hand, stretch aching limbs.
A blackbird catches the sun’s first rays
over the six foot fence,
and in another street a car pulls off.


While America sleeps,
there’s lunch in Moscow.
Balkan mines lie waiting for a child at play,
death on the Serengeti,
as a man steps off a platform in Japan,
and a bottle is uncorked to welcome the antipodean night.