The Streetsweeper

goes by at 1:00 a.m. two nights of the week. I can hear the feather whoosh of his machine and see one red light. I believe that the streetsweeper lives alone, sleeping through the cold days, waking clear-eyed and deft as the sun goes down. I believe that he works steadily without a portable radio or a reading light or a nap. When he pauses it is to stare placidly into the potent night. For reasons too numerous to mention, I think about the streetsweeper often and about the singular, provident cadence of his life.