Charles Jobson: The waiting game

The waiting game

Past midnight the old carriage clock ticks on.
Outside the street is bathed in electric white light.
As you look out from the ice-framed windows
a strange coordination of plants and shrubs emerge.

Each flat is like a capsule—
different races, different faces.
All the treasures inside are
reserved for their owners’ exclusive use.

By day tree-lined avenues
throng with busy passers-by.
Now in the small hours of the morning
the waiting game is being played out—

hour by hour resonating time
fixes the bare traces of late conversation,
and all the world is ready
to face another day of happiness and misery.