The Sky At Night

A simple telescope
An impulse buy from the market town
Where cheap scented candles were three for a pound
Where almost antiques are perused and discarded right under the shopkeepers'
eyes
I lost my girl to an eyepiece and the sky
The bedroom slipping into disrepair
The cellophane peels from a paperback book
The wallpaper tears where the pictures once stood
Street lights and dancing say much more to me than the cold sky at night
With your telescope gathering light
I’m left to my thoughts and I’m left to my records
And I’ll watch the back of your neck as you sit on your knees gazing up at the
sky
With your telescope gathering light
You’re lost to the world and you’re closing an eye
And I’m left all alone in the deafening quiet
Looking for something to fill all those nights when you’re lost gathering light
We’d kiss like teenagers
Who’d run away at seventeen
Romantically plan for a summer abroad
And make it as far as the next market town before midnight
And heading back home
Then I lost my girl to a small refracting lens
An eyepiece and a cylinder of light
The holiday sunglasses stay on the shelf
Gathering dust by the traveller’s globe
Street lights and dancing say much more to me than the cold sky at night
With your telescope gathering light
I’ll gather my thoughts and I’ll long for the courage
To pull down the shutters if I could discover some ways to distract
From the telescope gathering light
But you’re lost to the world and you’re closing an eye
And I’m left all alone in the deafening quiet
Looking for something to fill all those nights when you’re lost gathering light
So open up, let’s run through the city tonight
At least until the clouds dissipate