Carol Ann Duffy — Room

One chair to sit in, a greasy dusk wrong side of the tracks, and watch the lodgers' lights come on in the other rooms. No curtains yet. A cool lightbulb waiting for a moth. Hard silence. The roofs of terraced houses stretch from here to how many months. Room. One second hand bed to remind of a death, somewhen. Room. Then clouds the colour of smokers’ lungs. Then what. In a cold black window, a face takes off its glasses and stares out again. Night now; the giftless moon and a cat pissing on a wall. £90pw.