Commercial sunrise

Spilled from a leaky oil barrel--
a choking black with orange dots of all-night lighting--
the cities lie along the freeway lanes,
a concrete Styx with aluminum ships.
And the trucks shake like small earthquakes,
rumbling in aural competition
with the incessant nighttime trumpeting of the trains
as they cross over each intersection.
Overhead the planes, ever-indefatigable, are thrown
like massive darts at perfect targets,
and everyone's destination
is more important than the rest.
They never seem to empty,
those bottomless underground fuel tanks
at the 24-hour gas stations
(upon which the fervor of the new dawn
relies so unhesitatingly).
Not yet sunrise and already the masses gather,
with automobiles stretching and testing their cylinders,
lined up single-file to start the fleeting journey
that begins another fleeting day.