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.
By David Selzer