The night sky over Stepney

Charity didn’t mind light pollution.
Gazing from her bedroom window
she imagined each
streetlamp’s yellow halo
from a Spaceman’s view:

the estate a gooey colony
of glowing broccoli,
or lung alveoli,
dissected by a red A13.

But more thrilling still was her blue ceiling,
when darkness had fallen
and only the pink of her nightlight
forced long shadows
up the walls.

Only then could the smoke alarm’s LED
become the North Star;
the embossed ceiling rose

a shuttle -
ready to stamp
a kaleidoscopic crop circle
on the duvet.

Only then could the green, spotted lampshade
mimic the most convincing UFO
she’d ever seen
from any precinct
or dank bus shelter.

(Night:
its cross-hatching
of antilight behind the eyes;
its white-noise hiss
of unused sound.)

Charity held each object precious
before sleeping.

Until morning,
like playing cards dealt along a table,
began to advance
over faraway shores and fields

cloaking up streetlamps,
irradiating hills;

replacing all that was unreal and worked
with all that was real and didn’t.