Six A.M. Skyline

Six a.m.
Don't say it's over.

(six a.m. skyline)

The bakery vent breathes out on the whole street
and it's the best thing I've smelled in a year.
A man stacks crates outside a shut shop,
whistling something, wearing yesterday's beard.
The night bus passes with three on board
and all three of them asleep sitting up.
My shoes are in my hand. My feet are in the dust.
Your jacket is on me and it does not fit.
There's a bin lorry doing its rounds like a drummer,
two crates down, a pause, two more.
A cat crosses the road with real authority,
tail up, unhurried, off the clock forever.
Nothing else moving owns it like the cat.
Streetlights dying in a wave down the block
like somebody walked along and switched them.
And the glass on the tall side of the street
goes the colour of the inside of a peach.

Don't call it the end of anything.
The night doesn't finish. It hands over.
Same street. Same city. Different shift.
Look what it does when it thinks nobody's watching.

I'm still not sorry

(not sorry)
last night's dress, shoes in my hand.
The street clocks on, I clock out —
six a.m. skyline.

Don't go in.

Don't go in.

(don't go in)
Not while it's doing that.

(doing that)
Don't go in.

(doing that)
Don't go in.

(don't go in)
Six a.m. skyline.

Here they come — the early ones, the good coats,
the ones who got eight hours and a proper breakfast,
paper under one arm, phone in the other hand,
walking like the pavement owes them money.
They look at us the way you look at weather —
something that happened, something that'll pass.
A woman with a lanyard and a cup
gives me a look, and half a smile,
holds it one second longer than polite,
which in this city is a whole conversation,
tips the cup an inch — a toast, almost —
and carries on toward the revolving door,
and I know what she isn't saying.
Which is: I remember. I did that. Once.
The same lift I ride at nine on a Tuesday
goes up full of strangers who slept.
Good coats, clean shoes, the works —
not one of them smells of the river wind.
I'm going down the other way
with gravel in my heel and the sky in my teeth.

Don't call it the end of anything.
The night doesn't finish. It hands over.
Same street. Same city. Different shift.
Look what it does when it thinks nobody's watching.

I'm still not sorry

(not sorry)
last night's dress, shoes in my hand.
The street clocks on, I clock out —
six a.m. skyline.

Look at it.
Look what it's doing.
Nobody's watching this but us.

Don't go in.

(don't go in)
Not while it's doing that.

(doing that)
Don't go in.

I'll be back at that desk in twenty-six hours.
Same chair. Same screen. Same badge, same lanyard.
And nobody in that building will ever know
I watched the sun come up the side of it
with my shoes in my hand and gravel in my heel.
There's a coffee ring on my desk from Thursday,
a photo of nobody, a stapler, a pen.
None of them know. It's mine. They can't have it.

And I won't be sorry

And I won't be sorry

(not sorry)
at that desk with this in my chest.
They get the nine o'clock. I got the six —
six a.m. skyline.

Don't go in.

(doing that)
Don't go in.

(doing that)
Don't go in.

Don't go in.

(don't go in)
Six a.m. skyline.