Workin' at Nite

Lone elevator,
empty building,
marble-echo footsteps
to the streets, the
foggy streetlights,
sentinel buildings towering above;
most of downtown——except the homeless men
who curl in the bright underground
hallways——is asleep.

The bleach white light of the trains,
the roaring tunnel to emerge
in this broken city where I wander
the dark, barren streets with these
fingers grasping a butterfly knife instead of
a pen because it is far, far more practical.