My job

Sunset. Dinner on the aft deck. Clear plates and crumbs, martini glasses and crumpled linen.
Fall into bed.
Sunrise past the nautilus shell framed by a squeegeed window, past the sailboats in the harbor, reflecting off the red and white stacks defining the Port Jefferson skyline. Chambers infinite and dusty, a chambermaid this morning, eyes heavy with playlist-on-repeat induced sleep.

The smell of coffee wafts through doorways and down stairwells, past the drooping sunflowers in their vase and baskets of shoes waiting to be worn to work that morning.
Push buttons, steam fills the space in front of my blinking eyelids, I watch the brown liquid stream into a shiny metal pot. I watch when there is nothing to watch and I am jolted into the present by machines beeping, footsteps on the stairs.
I pour a cup for myself, not the usual, but it is 5:30am and this is not the usual.
Jittery and speaking in staccato bursts, I fluff pillows and serve omelettes.

I watch the morning float by on caffeine and the warmth of sunshine streaming into the salon.
And I watch the sunset through port holes when my day ends after smiling hellos and goodbyes, dusting chambers, taking time for naps and running.

Sunrise and sunset.
I feel lucky to have seen both today, even it was from behind a uniform and a swiffer.