In Town

Some wake up in cardboard boxes. Some drive around in silver boxes. Cops in Irish pubs drink whisky with black morning coffee. Who will be first to climb the dawn light? Daybreak stretches its long gray tendons to high windows where dim reflections mirror strings of geese leaving. There’s a virus crawling around they say. Some wake up dying, some night-walkers go home to their daydreams. The town will wear a different mask for a while, on the freeway rubber rolls to elsewhere. A limp light wallows in roof guttering’s, shadows run low, scuttle into dank corners. The last skein of geese has passed by. I am at my window watching, the concrete cells are waking, some will not sleep again, not before the next gasping night steals their breath away.