Night Shift

Let us now praise the night shift—

those on the 8 to 4, the 10 to 6,

 

the 10-hour or 12-hour shift,

the bread bakers pounding and leavening,

 

the pastry cooks rolling and filling,

the sleep-deprived, the heavy-eyed,

 

the pale and dark ones sleeping

through their days, ambulance drivers

 

with their bright sirens, pilots

whose planes move like wandering stars,

 

the dawn-obsessed, the checkers of watches,

nurses slipping into unlit rooms,

 

the uniformed, the dressed-down, the truckers

with their high beams on, the wired,

 

the goosed up, the dragged down,

the lost and lonely selling tickets at dim windows,

 

girls who kick their shoes off, the ones

who walk the aisles, security staff, night watchmen,

 

all those who guard our nights,

unsmiling collectors of tolls, bouncers

 

at the after-hours bars, strummers

of guitars, ticklers of drums, working

 

in the shadow world where fluorescent lights

stand in for sun and flashes of neon

 

pass for stars. Let us praise the yawners

and those who stretch to stay awake,

 

coffee hounds, speed freaks, Coke drinkers,

women splashing water on their faces.

 

Remember the blackjack dealers with their gleaming cards,

waitresses sleepwalking from table to table,

 

taxi drivers with a gun in the glove,

all the weary, the fearful, the men

 

who never see their wives, the nervous babysitters,

those dancing to strange music, the clank

 

and drone of the factory machines,

printers rolling out the news,

 

all those dreaming of dawn and sleep

until, at last, in the first hint of light, the clerk

 

alone in the 7-11 counts the change in the cash drawer

and closes out the night.

 

North American Review

 

October 27, 2005