Traffic thickens like molasses
As the summer sun beckons, and
Folks peel away from work to escape
And drive home and rest
At last.
Then there is my aunt
Who takes the twelve hour shift
Filled
By the hard-working immigrants
Who fall through
Society's gaps
To catch the city
When it lapses into sleep.
Her shift ends at midnight,
And like cogs in a clock—
Multi-coloured
With different teeth and tongues that speak the same words of love
Another worker comes to keep the factory chugging along.
My aunt spends the quiet drive home
On a suburban street
That leads to a newly built house.
And the urban life is filled with urban joy
Though not as tall as the crooked towers in Vietnam
When the sun draws short shadows on the ground at dawn
Not the same as waking up along with her sisters
At the brink of a new day.
Not the same, only different.
For her the sun and moon orbit
In the center of the sky
Much like how the best of both lives is achieved when they kiss halfway
Instead of the Canadian borders that edge the sea
Pulling in and out the tides
Of reoccurring dreams
Quite far from my aunt's reach
Especially when no one knows to ask
If she had enough of muscle strain or the hollow spaces
That are yet to be filled with self-realization.
Does her beginning justify a happy end?
Does the path extend from third to first-world fulfillment?