Nocturne for a Reading Lamp

The house has gone to sleep without me again.
The lamp and I keep company instead,
two small economies of light and ink
against the general dark.

Somewhere a queen is riding through a wood
that never was, pursued by an idea.
I turn the page. The wood goes on without her.
The idea does not.

When I look up, the window holds my face
over the garden, reading in mid-air —
the one enchantment I have ever managed,
and it is enough.