The Orange Room

As I sit at night
in the worn dint
of my favourite seat,
with the lamp tipped
into my black lap,
the window there
is made a trick mirror
by the inside light.

All I see
in the black pane
is a patch scissored out
of the opaque;
the orange room
on the first floor
of an opposite house
where they leave
the drapes pulled back
late into the night.

A standing lamp
and its silhouette,
the painted wall,
then outwards only
the dark hill
of an unknown home
like far-off Grendel.

With strained eyes
you can touch beyond,
to the starless glow
of London's fire —
a million circuits,
filaments and wires
irritating the sky
to dullblonde twilight.