APPLAUSE

How can you not
Think about the night janitor
Working the rest stop between
Erie, Pennsylvania and Cleveland,
Who leaned against that giant window
At one in the morning, watching nothing,
Watching the darkness
And the occasional headlights
Fumbling off the turnpike?
How could anyone survive that night?
The fluorescent lights busily reciting
Your life story, interrupted
Only by latrines
Flushing
In sarcastic applause.