All night it humps the air.

Speechless, the steam rises

from the cannery columns. I hear

the night bird rave about work

or lunch, or sing the swing shift

home. I listen, while bodyless

uniforms and spinach specked shoes

drift in monochrome down the dark

moon-possessed streets. Women

who smell of whiskey and tomatoes,  

peach fuzz reddening their lips and eyes—

I imagine them not speaking, dumbed

by the can’s clamor and drop

to the trucks that wait, grunting

in their headlights below.

They spotlight those who walk

like a dream, with no one

waiting in the shadows

to palm them back to living.