dawn sounds

Mornings have the smell of desperation
Clean air sharp from the cold, irritated by daytime animals inhaling before the sun has had a chance to wake it up
People going about their beginnings and preparations, mostly the preparations for other people's beginnings-
Milk deliveries, trash collection, transporting meat or fish or vegetables to the last mile
Trucks barrelling down the rifles of night roads, rushing to escape the daytime, to leave it asleep
The smell of menthol and the sensation of a too-fast heart, beating in time to the visible pulse.
The predawn is a trap - a suburban home in a city learning its limits, too far to move about,
No way out without dependent transport,
A time for not-indecision, for the wringing of hands,
For the gathering of evidence that will later be understood to be, among other things, helplessness
And with it, rage
And underneath it, resignation.
Dawn is for the pigeons and crows to line the powerlines,
Unwilling to cede the road to the daytime animals proper,
Sitting sentinel to your bleary eyes, not knowing how you will survive one more day of maths and physics and oh, god, chemistry
Listening to the same five songs, dreaming.
Days, like crumpled paper acquire a shell, once the heat really kicks in, once
You have a few hours under your belt and no excuse not to have finished beginning
Once lacquer pools in the creases, tearing or reinforcing. Committing to the shape of how this day has decided to break.
Before the sealing, the catastrophe of it -
- the day already begun -
Is unsafe.