The Lamp on the Sill

The window sill of a white clapboard laboratory in rural New Jersey on a cold December night, on the sill an early electric lamp nineteen centimetres high glowing warm amber, a nearly round thin glass bulb with a small pointed tip, inside a fine black carbon filament in a narrow U-shaped loop, a slender glass neck set in a red ring, a turned honey-brown wooden foot flaring to a round base with two blackened brass terminals, beyond the frosted panes old snow, a row of glowing lamps on wooden poles, visitors in dark winter coats seen from directly behind, faces turned fully away, breath clouds in the cold.