Lit Side

By half past six it's been dark two hours, and the block across the courtyard has turned itself inside out.

Third floor, left: a man irons a shirt for tomorrow, does the collar twice. Below him a girl at a table pushes peas into a shape and is told, I think, to stop.

Nobody draws the curtains in November until they remember to. From the lit side a window is a mirror; they see themselves, tired, holding an iron.

I'm the one in the dark kitchen, kettle not yet on, watching a stranger hang a shirt on the back of a door like someone he expects.

Then I put the light on and give him back his evening.