Third Shift Gravity

The fridge hummed a choir for three nights straight

while the apartment walls started to sweat.

I left the bed in a tangled-up state

to walk where the asphalt is heavy and wet.

The rain is a stutter, a half-hearted blur,

it stops and it starts like a light on the fritz.

I’m under the bridge where the engines occur

as the city is blown into shivering bits.

The pylon is slick with a rainbow of oil,

reflecting a streetlamp that’s dying in yellow.

I’m watching the colors begin to uncoil

in a puddle that’s shallow and greasy and mellow.