Express

The clock blinks one a.m., too dark to tell
which road we’re on. I’ve passed through sleep too much

to notice my neighbour’s iPhone’s kanji
or its sound at a somnolent murmur

that could be his favourite song or news
of three men killed on a roadside in Basra

or an audiobook. If this is the first
time he’s been in a poem, though he is here,

historically, real as the three passing names
on the news or the hundreds yet to ride

this same bus and give themselves over
to this as-yet-unidentified hum –

engine, music, or breath – he knows better
than to wake until voices restore us

to the light. Tonight, if nothing else,
I give him this: the clock that’s shown one a.m.

for hours, the eight hours passed between my place
and another, the dark glass even now

giving back a grey reflection, as much
a bedroom window as a screen between

two disappearing nows. With the GPS
on his iPhone, my friend need never be lost.

The one in this line I record and regard
has already passed into local legend.