How can you not

Think about the night janitor

Working the rest stop between

Erie, Pennsylvania and Cleveland,

Who leaned against that giant window

At one in the morning, watching nothing,

Watching the darkness

And the occasional headlights

Fumbling off the turnpike?

How could anyone survive that night?

The fluorescent lights busily reciting

Your life story, interrupted

Only by latrines

Flushing

In sarcastic applause.