Summer evening

The sun’s below the pitched tiled roofs

Bees still on the yellow poppies

Sparrows skit around the greenhouse, taking ants

The female blackbird’s on the grass close by

My brow’s moist and hot

I take Crow from the glass

Tapa blanda

The whiskey finds my insides

The curtains in the dining room are closed

Yellow wall-lights lit

Greens and blues flicker in the living room

The door’s been slammed already once

But the air’s clean out here

There’s no one shouting from the corner

No enhanced laughter or applause

Nothing tearing at me

Still light. Peaceful. Still.

With every stolen lumen

That room becomes a tomb

* tapa blanda = paperback