Walking the Streets at Night

“Walked home via Aldwych. Reflected that nothing really changes. I’m still walking about this city dragging my loneliness with me, putting on a front, whistling in the dark. It is getting darker all the time.” - The Kenneth Williams Diaries

Walking the streets at night,
I look at windows overlooking alleyways
and tangled gardens long since given up,

and picture myself inside those rooms
just outside the dangerous corner of pitch,
where anything might be lurking.

I’d never tell my grandmother,
who once freaked out
when I said that I’d been for a walk
and seen
the lights of Clacton pier,
glistening on the sea
like headlights on an oil spill.

But that was many years ago
(or so it feels today)
and now her mind’s begun to go.

I imagine those corners of pitch,
cold and savage up against fences
and in between houses,
and how the lucky huddle up
behind the squares of yellow
in the night.

Every night it gets darker
and ageing’s like a long walk in the night,
or so it feels to me,
28 and bent towards despair.