There are gaps between the Velux windows

and the blinds – intentional, of course,

to let in shafts of sunlight. At night

the sodium street lights make arrow shapes

on the bedroom’s walls. Raindrops the flood tide brings

slide like orangey, silvery glitter balls –

almost the colour of the wheat grains

that would have been piled on tarpaulins to dry

on the oak floorboards of this converted loft.

Thinking the street lights daylight herring gulls

halloo all night from chimney tops and gables.

Through the bathroom skylight constellations

glitter over the unpolluted mountains.

In this erstwhile granary a poet

and his muse are sleeping  – like Larkin’s

effigies who ‘would not think to lie so long’

or Thomas’s ‘two old kippers in a box’ –

as gulls call and stars turn.