The Five-Fifteen Sweep

At 5:15 the diesel engine coughs a thick gray lung

and the headlights carve a path across my ceiling.

I’m wide awake, feeling old and unstrung,

while the neighborhood keeps its rhythm and its feeling.

He’s out there now in the pre-dawn blue,

wiping the condensation with a gloved palm.

He has a destination, a thing he must do,

while I’m stuck here in this jagged, airless calm.

He clears a small porthole in the glass,

a crescent of clarity against the cold.

I watch the ghost of his taillights pass,

tracking a story that never gets told.