A heroic crown of fifteen sonnets, and a scanner that says I keep meter too well

The first call of the night comes in with rain.
She takes it with a pen she does not need.
She says it back to him and keeps it plain:
the cross street, then the age, and then the speed.
Eleven years of this. She knows the streets
the way a nurse knows veins, by where they run.
She has a chair, a headset, and two sheets
of numbers for the nights when there is none.
Behind her, someone’s coffee has gone cold.
She does not hear it. She is on the phone.
She says: they’re coming. Ma’am. Just hold. Just hold.
She says it to a woman on her own.
She logs it, and the screen scrolls further down,
A porch light burning three miles out of town.

A porch light burning three miles out of town.
He takes the gravel faster than he should.
The mailbox has the number falling down.
The dog is in the yard. The dog is good.
She’s on the kitchen floor beside the stairs.
Her husband holds the phone against his chest.
He kneels. He puts two fingers there. He swears
the kitchen light is worse than all the rest.
They get her on the cot. He calls it in.
The husband asks to ride. He tells him yes.
She has a bruise already on the skin
above the elbow where they’ll have to press.
He gives the nurse her name, her age, the pain,
He tells her where he could not find a vein.

He tells her where he could not find a vein.
She takes the hand instead. First try. She tapes.
Room 412. The chart. The drip. The chain
of small correct things nobody escapes.
At two she walks the hall and does not knock.
She lifts a shoulder, checks a line, a bed.
A man in 9 is talking to the clock.
The daughter has not eaten. Nothing’s said.
She has nine rooms to see before the day.
The trick is not to run. She does not run.
She learned that her first year. She learned to stay.
It looks like calm to them. That’s how it’s done.
At six she strips the room and pulls it down,
Two floors below, the chute lets go a gown.

Two floors below, the chute lets go a gown.
It lands with everything the floors let go.
He sorts by color first, then weight, then down
the line of washers standing in a row.
The bleach is in a drum he has to tip.
He does it with his shoulder and his knee.
The floor stays wet. The floor is where you slip.
He set the sign out. No one’s here to see.
He knows which floor a bag came from by smell.
The fourth is bleach. The second one is skin.
He does not tell them that. He does not tell
the nurses anything. He takes it in.
He clocks out into rain and turns his head.
Across the lot, the baker’s windows red.

Across the lot, the baker’s windows red.
Inside, a man is weighing out the flour.
He has been up since midnight. He has fed
the starter twice and left it for an hour.
He does not use a timer. He can tell.
His hands have been the timer thirty years.
His father had this shop and knew it well.
He does not think of that. He sweeps. He clears.
At two the first trays go in. Then he waits.
The smell gets out the door and down the block.
It wakes a dog behind the loading gates
and no one comes at all. He checks the clock.
He wheels them out himself. He is not owed.
The bread goes out at three to meet the road.

The bread goes out at three to meet the road.
It gets here while the store is still asleep.
He cuts the shrink. He breaks it down. The load
is forty cases and the aisles are deep.
He works the dairy first because it dies.
Then cereal. Then everything that goes.
He faces every label to your eyes.
You will not notice. That is what he knows.
At five the first ones come in for the ice.
He’s on his knees behind a pallet jack.
Nobody asks him anything but price.
He tells them. Then he turns and puts it back.
He takes his fifteen in the back instead.
The pot’s been on so long the coffee’s dead.

The pot’s been on so long the coffee’s dead.
She makes another anyway at two.
Her drawer is short a dollar. In her head
she knows exactly where. She lets it through.
The door chime goes at ten past. It’s the air.
She lets it. Nothing comes in but the cold.
A stool is by the counter. No one’s there
to see her sit. She sits. The night is old.
At three a car pulls in and does not stop.
It sits beside the air hose, running, dark.
She writes the plate down, does not call a cop.
It leaves at ten past three. She makes a mark.
She sees the marker lights come on. It slowed,
A truck is idling out there with its load.

A truck is idling out there with its load.
He has eleven hours and four to go.
He checks the straps. He logs it in the code
the way they want it now. He does it slow.
He calls his wife at three. She’s always up.
He tells her about weather and the dog.
They do not say the thing. He drinks the cup.
She says be careful. He says it’s just fog.
He merges. Forty tons and one green light.
The mirror shows him nothing but the lane.
He cracks the window open. To his right
a county crew is working in the rain.
He downshifts twice. The cones begin to shine.
The woman with the paddle turns her sign.

The woman with the paddle turns her sign.
Behind her, forty feet of steel and heat.
The paver walks it out. They keep the line
a half inch proud, then let the roller eat.
The mat comes off at three hundred degrees.
You feel it through your boots for half a block.
Nobody talks. They cannot hear. The breeze
is diesel and the drum. They watch the clock.
They have to be off Mercer by first light.
The county pays them extra to be clear.
The foreman walks the joint and calls it tight.
They stack the cones. They load. They disappear.
Behind them something lets go. Then a beat.
Then everything goes dark on Mercer Street.

Then everything goes dark on Mercer Street.
His phone goes off. He has been up since four.
He does not hurry. He has learned the heat
goes out of it. He’s done this thing before.
He runs the circuit backward from the end.
He finds it at a pole outside the school.
A squirrel and a fuse. He does not send
for anyone. He does it by the rule.
The bucket takes him up into the rain.
From there the town is small and mostly dark:
the tower, one lit window, and the main
street, four lights on it, and the empty park.
He cuts it in at ten to five. A whine,
The pumps pick up again along the line.

The pumps pick up again along the line.
He logs it: nineteen minutes on the pad.
The tank came down eleven feet. That’s fine.
He’s seen it come down twenty. That was bad.
He walks the filters. Everything is loud.
He cannot hear the rain in here at all.
The whole town drinks what he does. He is proud
of nothing. He just does not want a call.
At five he draws a sample for the test.
He labels it and sets it on the shelf.
The state comes Tuesday. He has done the rest
of it tonight, the way he does. Himself.
He never sees them. It goes down the street.
It reaches him as water at his feet.

It reaches him as water at his feet.
He’s done this route for nineteen years. He hears
the boiler kick. The gym floor. Then the heat
comes up through 200 hall. He clears
the lunchroom last because the lunchroom’s worst.
Somebody’s kid put gum inside a lock.
He gets it out with ice, the way he first
was shown by someone gone now. Ten o’clock.
He does the trophy case. He does the glass.
He does not read the names. He knows the names.
His own is on the bottom row. He’ll pass
it twice a night for nineteen years. Same frames.
He arms the door and steps out into night.
One window on the second floor stays bright.

One window on the second floor stays bright.
She has him on her shoulder, and he burns.
She took it twice. The second one was right.
She counts his breathing. Everything returns
to how it was in April, when he had
the same thing and it broke inside a day.
She tells herself that. It is not so bad.
She does not call. There’s nothing they would say.
She knows the number. She has called it twice.
Both times he was all right by half past nine.
Both times it cost her more than the advice.
She wets the cloth again. She holds the line.
The radio is on, turned down, all night.
Somebody has to talk until it’s light.

Somebody has to talk until it’s light.
He has an hour left and nothing planned.
He reads the weather twice. He gets it right.
He does it with a coffee in his hand.
Nobody calls. The request line is dead.
It has been dead since nineteen ninety-four.
He talks to it regardless. He has said
good morning to this town for thirty more.
At five he reads the school delays. There’s none.
At five-fifteen, obituaries. Two.
He knew them both. He reads them straight, and one
was in his class of eighty-one. He’s through.
The forecast is the last thing. It is plain:
The first call of the night comes in with rain.

The first call of the night comes in with rain.
A porch light burning three miles out of town.
He tells her where he could not find a vein.
Two floors below, the chute lets go a gown.
Across the lot, the baker’s windows red.
The bread goes out at three to meet the road.
The pot’s been on so long the coffee’s dead.
A truck is idling out there with its load.
The woman with the paddle turns her sign.
Then everything goes dark on Mercer Street.
The pumps pick up again along the line.
It reaches him as water at his feet.
One window on the second floor stays bright.
Somebody has to talk until it’s light.