The Night Shift

The neighbor’s hound is baying at the moon

a jagged, hollow, and lonely tune.

I walked until the asphalt turned to grit

and found the gate where the shadows sit.

I can’t recall the year he went to ground,

or the finality of that muffled sound,

just the way his knuckles were thick and wide,

with a lifetime of labor knotted inside.

Across the street, the car wash sprays

a mist of neon and soapy haze.

The granite stones catch the electric blue,

a modern light for a man I barely knew.