Sally Thomas

The lights shine out. The shadows cross the lawn.

Behind her blinds, the woman in the house

Moves through the rooms. The lights she’s turning on,

Lamp here, lamp there, illuminate her progress

Behind those blinds. This woman, in her house,

Has brought her children up. Her husband’s gone.

The lamps are all that’s left to mark her progress,

This cold blue evening when she’s there alone.

Her children all brought up, her husband gone—

Her life’s a thing unseen inside a house

Composed of cold blue evenings. There, alone,

What does she do? Why does it come to this?

Is life a thing unseen? Inside a house,

With no one there to talk to, night’s a prison.

What does she do? Why does it come to this:

The sudden ice-blue flicker of a television, 

No one there to talk to? Night’s a prison.

Pale chilly lamplight spills onto the grass,

The sudden ice-blue flicker of the television.

She’s in there. Sand runs through the hourglass.

Pale chilly lamplight spills onto the grass.

Though lights shine out, the shadows cross the lawn.

She’s in there. Sand runs through the hourglass—

The rooms, the lights, the night, the hours till dawn.