The houselit lights are
Warm and soft and bright,
Each little glow
Illuminates their little rooms,
Their little lives.
One glass pane flashes
Blue and white and red,
TV flashlights in the dark.
The glass of wine tips to the ground,
Her hand limp and pale.
One curtain twitches;
The red fabric ripples
Like air flowing across the window.
Dragon-breath steams the glass
While he sits and waits and sighs.
Other squares are darkened,
Their little boxes shut up for the night;
Lids on, padlocks locked.
Letting in the dark,
Keeping out the night.
The streetlamp lights the darkened places,
A sentinel; quiet, simple, silent,
Watching secret spaces and
Whispered sweet nothings
Exchanged between lovers.
Distant lights are the stars
On the not-quite-darkened horizon
Bordered by clouds that
Are holding in the air,
Holding out the sky.
Those little lights
They call to me in my
Little life in my little room,
Through the glass of the window pane,
Raindrops twinkling them into constellations.
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