Cages

Light makes shapes in shadow,

bright cages laid out across the floor and up the walls,

highlighting marks and scuffs and unclean moments. 

The furniture lurks within the darker spaces,

sound of a ticking clock the only proof

that the world has not come to a stuttering pause. 

Coffee sits in the pot, stewing, more like cold bovril

than hot forests of green and swaying trees,

teeming with quick life and endless noise. 

Born in places that may as well be another world, now it stews. 

Stewing like gnawing, nagging thoughts that 

never leave, but grow insipid. 

Light cages move to capture sofas and a television and still the clock ticks. 

The toaster clicks and the smell of burnt makes its way through.