On Turning

People keep all sorts of hours
To keep your hours all turning.
Mostly, you only notice
Those that are aligned with yours.

But shift yourself through the dark.
Experiment with early,
Earlier, late, and later,
With cities and with desert,

With hospital, prison cell,
Nightclub, dawn on a prairie—
You’ll get there. You can feel it
In the small town at odd hours,

In bedroom suburb twilights.
Someone is up to something
To keep their life stumbling on,
That keeps your own hours turning.