Portrait of Poet with Dimmer Switch

Of all the home improvements he could make
he has made one—the installation of
a dimmer switch set in his writing desk
which, calibrated automatically,
maintains the light indoors a notch below
the light outside. This way he does not have
to see himself reflected in the glass
or, round him, all the things that prove him home.
 
This way he can address the changing of
the seasons and not once come up against
the two-faced, God-damned falsehood he’s become.
The daylight hours and summer months are fine
but afternoons’ and autumns’ drawings-in
precurse the wastes of hours spent in the dark.
 
He will describe the moon and stars, the sun,
the streetlights, from his window seat, and fail
to see the one illuminating thing;
whatever light out here falls in on him.