Stately Manor

A lamp was lit to ward off pestilence.
The way he reclined on the floor, just so.
Still, there was the matter of his neck,
which ached from the angle of the screen
when he peered into it, like a window
of some sort looking onto a porch overlooking
the yard of a stately manor, he thought.
Meanwhile, the helicopters transported people
with vast, if not enormously vague incomes
from island to island. Looking down, they thought
who could live there amidst all that traffic
and noise. Asleep at night, he heard them, the
helicopters, and the endless streams of cars
and motorcycles. Drunken strangers babbled
on the street, alone, except for them, he
was wise. He's glad he noticed that, felt
a certain gray sense of the day start to recede
and darken into green and amber. Fist pump
emoticons lay limp on the banner hung over
the wrought iron railing. The lights, how they change
in the friendless sky, when the skin of the day is
pealed back: lemons. All in all not a bad way.