One Poem by Jack Houston

Sidereal

for K, happy birthday

I like the same things we do, the world, its hope,
the lullaby playing in the spaces above our worries,

how a flurry of instincts follows my every footstep
through to where we’re sat by the campfire, having left

a space for the smoke to blow through. The soft sway
of evening has started to take us by surprise,

and in our ponderous hover for more there is little
but a lack of reaction, the way the day may well fall over lakes,

a haze playing into the slow fade of whatever
swims out into the centre. There is only ever the here

we have to tell ourselves is something as the light throws itself
around us, as if it will go on and on and on forever.

Jack Houston lives in London with his partner and their two young sons. Recent work in Blackbox Manifold, Brittle Star, The North, The Result Is What You See Today (Poetry Business) and Stand. He runs a council-funded poetry workshop at Woodberry Down Library, Hackney, the 2nd Tuesday of every month.