a bad case of evening

dawn is many hours away
and some of us won’t be here when it arrives

that’s another definition of “evening”
some die to make room for the newly living
some are born to replenish the livestock

the surface of the earth spins mildly toward and mildly away from the sun
and every hour the sun is 65,000 miles closer to the midst of sagittarius
as the earth-moon duet makes its helical ellipsoid in gravitational thrall
but we are stuck with our surface-bred notions of “sunrise” and “sunset”

and each sunset seems to say a goodbye
each sunrise a “ready or not, here i come”

but not every sleeper wakes
and not every awakening is welcome

now the colors of the evening are going to grayscale
drivers of absurd automobiles force-activate artificial light
and some of us wish henry ford had stood in bed
and cracked his skull on the ceiling
and fallen safely back to
sleep
the notion
of mass production
nicely knocked out of him

weariness is a mule
unbudgingly souring thoughts
and the mulish weary body wants to stay put

“you’ll feel better in the morning”

“thanks for the sandpaper”