Waterfront Before Dawn Poem by Patrick O'Reilly

Right about the time my eyes start looking like the tail-lights of a taxi cab going down skid row at 4 in the morning and I start getting a bit twitchy for a smoke or a woman or shock treatment or some damn thing the sun comes up just a little bit and in that little dropp of light I can see that I was more alone than I had realized and that all those shadows splashed across the dockyard walls were only my own and even the taxi cabs are fast asleep in the vacant lot beside an Ultramar and there ain't nothing left to hear but the seagulls crying in hunger and the ships' bells shouting across still water and dawn.