Graveyard Shift
Dec 4 2009


We recognize each other
by the puffy pale skin
the pre-occupation with sleep.
By the constant squint, in daylight,
the craving for sweets.
The sun is our enemy,
blocked out by heavy curtains
drawn tight,
by well-trained kids
who walk on tip-toe, whispering.

Nights are usually slow.
The absent bosses,
the eccentrics and misanthropes
drawn like moths
to artificial light,
to pot-luck lunch
at midnight.
Then the deep black hole
of 4 am,
fighting sleep, fending-off boredom
trying hard not to watch the clock.
We are like burrowing moles,
blind and colourless
toiling invisibly underground,
keeping the power on
manning the pumps.

So late, it’s early
on our way home,
we pass grid-locked traffic
against the flow,
feeling smug, even triumphant
to be done.
And nod, bleary-eyed, at other night people
in the sterile morning light,
like members of a secret society
initiates in a cult.
Acknowledging our communal misery,
our battle with sleep,
our lives out of sync
with the world.

And the guilty pleasure
to be free
when everyone else is a work.