Midnight to Eight, a poem by David Salner

Midnight to eight I spend with machines,
with their incessant hum, the hubbub and scrape,
the snip-snip, the whine of well-oiled tongues
that winds through the night. I listen to lathes
go round, to mills that peck at each part-piece
like hungry birds, to grinders whose bit-sized
teeth make ultra-fine dust, golden iotas
drawn toward heaven by the drone of a fan.

I nod to this music and think of you
on a steep hill overlooking Morgantown
where you dream all night in your factory
of sleep, creating from each sweet breath
a new instant. Breathing in, breathing out,
working all night, making each now right.




David Salner's work appears in Threepenny Review, Salmagundi, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere.  His third book is Blue Morning Light, (Pond Road Press, 2016).

"Midnight to Eight" appeared in Blue Morning Light, Pond Road Press, 2016 and is reprinted with the permission of the author.