I live across the street
from a junior high school
in western Pennsylvania.
When it snows—and it snows

all winter long—the district's
maintenance workers arrive
with shovels and blowers
and plows, scraping, dumping

and beep-beeping in reverse
under my bedroom window.
In bad storms they start
at midnight and work

till dawn, the sidewalks
cleared just before
the groan of school buses.
Sometimes, though, the snow

is relentless, and by 6 a.m.
I hear the equipment yawn
to a halt. All goes silent.
Soon the superintendent

will send a recorded
phone message announcing
a cancellation or delay.
By February, his voice is

a weary sigh: Good morning,
parents... And you know
he's thinking If this keeps up,
we'll be here till July.

Where do the workers go?
Back to bed? Or off
to keep the ancient boiler
purring like a tamed lion?

Once when my son was
in 8th grade, a local attorney
was a no-show for career day.
The principal replaced him

with the longtime janitor.
He wore his blue jumpsuit,
my son said. I picture his
name on the chest—Ray

or Ed—but that's likely
my own embellishment.
Even a 13-year-old boy
cringed at the questions:

What level of education
prepared you for your job?
What do you like best
about the path you chose?

The janitor answered
as seriously as the banker
and the pediatrician.
What I like best, he said,

is being alone in the building
at the end of the day. I turn
my radio up as loud as I want.
Some evenings when I

draw the blinds, I see him
framed in the yellow glow
of a classroom. He's stacking
desks to mop the floors—

night after night, year
after year, moving
to the sound of a song
I can't quite hear.