December Lights

Tonight the pavements glisten

While diamonds fall from the sky

The corrugated factory with its great neon lettering

Picking up the red metallic glow

Of stop motion traffic

A digital picture

As if drawn on a screen

Clean

only by the definition of light and shadow

Rich under the gleam of red and amber gold.

A place that by day

In the Northern, spotting grey rain

And abandoned industry

Is quiet in its demeanour un-startling in its awkward beauty,

A cardboard cutout against a laundry sky.

Surviving uncertainly on the outskirts of grand architecture

Mothering the small strung houses

With their inches of yard Enough room for a washing line

And cheerful plastic reindeer