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| Working the Night Shift II Going to work early tonight, that I may arrive before him. But now there is a police car trailing me and his flashing lights giving me a migraine. And when he asks me, "Do you know how fast you were going?" I want to ask him where he is when I need him-- as I cross the mine-field that he thinks is a parking-lot I want to show him the way the man watches me, from behind dirty wire glasses as he leans back on his stool and chews his gum. The way his eyes follow me as I carry newspapers and arrange my desk and write this poem. I want to say, "If you saw these things, if you could fathom the way it feels to need someone like you just to be around in those moments, and discover yourself utterly alone, you might see why going 36 in a 30 mile zone is not my idea of injustice." --August 21, 2001 |