Washington’s Second Alarm

Sometime around nautical dawn
Blackbirds and Cardinals
sing and respond
before the rest of us
sleeping civil servants can see.
An unknown audience
hearing unwritten songs
While we lie back in our beds
small gods
fly over our neighborhoods
and land wherever they like.

But at exactly Six AM
Delta’s New York Shuttle
makes its final approach
sounding like a dull tornado
rolling down on the banks of the Potomac
Everyone aboard has stowed tray tables
in upright and locked positions
with no knowledge
the slumbering government workforce
will tell time by their descent
to runway nineteen.