All is not well in suburbia

All is not well in suburbia
when at midnight you arise
to find a jackhammer tearing the street
and a backhoe lunging into the asphalt;

You block your ears to the noise and know
you will not sleep because you must keep open
the window, for the heat, the heat, the bloody awful heat;

In a torrent of inner rage, you almost tear your hair out
when suddenly you remember you fell asleep hours ago
and the cars are still on the street but must be garaged during the wee hours;

So out you trudge in slippers and hastily thrown on sweats exchanged for a nightgown
when you notice, far down the street, a squeak, squeak squeak, a dark, shadowy figure
wheeling a shopping cart with black rubbish bags tied to its sides, as the cart's owner
walks the white line in the middle lane of the quiet suburban street, where all are asleep,
save him and you;

You see he's picking through garbage barrels and recycle bins, perhaps hoping for
an unopened can, a half-clean shirt, a semi-working appliance, as he staggers down
the middle of the street, and all you hear is the squeak, squeak, squeak of the shopping
cart's rusty wheels;

You decide, for once, to lock the car doors as you garage the first car and leave the second in the driveway, and you return, once and for all to your bed, to try for a good night's sleep; or, failing that, you try  for any sleep you can get; you try for anything you can get;

Not unlike the stranger wheeling the squeaky shopping cart.