I have been sitting in this room for days.
Nobody minds me. The morning is white
and shouts loud obscenities in the craze
of dawn. The echoes kept me up the night.
I am the insomniac child of stars.
I am the wakeful one who feeds a kite
to the hungry cat while he chases cars.
He bobs his orange tail from street to street.
I watch him closely from the window bars
until the clock cuckoos and the high heat
of the yellow room puts me in a spell.
For days I have sat on the window seat.
Nobody minds me. I adorn my cell
with quietude and small states of affairs.
The paperboy is here, I can tell
by the barking of dogs under the stairs.
What is it that the newsmen have written?
The war is longer and nobody cares
and the soldiers sleep all over Britain.
The bishop is saying Mass for the dead.
The orange cat is old and flea-bitten.
I have watched it from the foot of my bed.
I have swallowed the crumbs of my daily bread.