Regulation

The air is a blanket you have to push through,

turning the evening a hazy, thick blue.

The streetlamp is casting a sickly orange glow,

on the dust of the screen where the moths used to go.

But out in the distance, a thud and a clack,

a ball hitting pavement and coming right back.

The rhythm is steady, a heartbeat of stone,

telling me somebody else is alone.