Night Shift Sympathy: the spotted orb weaver

She yawns into twilight, waking to work,

looking for car keys, coffee.

A few strands of networking ping her

towards the drudgery of survival.

Her tasks keep spinning round and round for an indifferent boss.

Expertise is trusted like the integrity

of dedicated election officials

knowing methods and procedures,

nearly invisible and not in charge.

She may seem to be loafing,

but, facing earth’s gravity,

her attention is centered, undivided.

Neckties are pathetic, have minimal purpose,

dispensable; females birth the world,

are tolerant of necessity and like Penelope,

she has faith amid deception.

Hours turn, night fliers tangle in web-warping

assumptions of space and time.

She dines alone, an empty nester,

her children elsewhere,

climbing ladders to their own aspirations.

When dawn rises to a certain intensity

having completed another vigil,

she shreds her work,

recycles the proteins for another night.

She can’t decide if it is all worth it:

to sleep through another day.

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Fredrick Wilbur’s poetry collections are As Pus Floats the Splinter Out and Conjugation of Perhaps. He is poetry co-editor and blogger for Streetlight Magazine. He was awarded the Stephen Meats Poetry Prize for best poem of the year by Midwest Quarterly (2018).