Open in the Hall

Someone's umbrella is drying open on the hall floor, the way you'd never stand one anywhere else: a black roof with no house under it, ribs out, still letting go a small ring onto the tiles.

It takes up the whole hall. We step round it to the coats, round it to the light switch, round it again with the tea, and nobody folds it, because it isn't dry, because that is the rule.

Outside the drizzle keeps on at eleven degrees, not enough to call rain. By morning the ring will be a mark you can only see at an angle, and the thing will be shut and leaning by the door, thin as a heron, ready to be left on a tram.