for myself, and for you

where the wind makes more wind or where
the children sleep inside their dreams, where the
cop walks backwards and blind, the wrong door,
the wrong time, shoots a stranger in a stranger’s house and
it’s a joke, a riddle, a puzzle, two trains moving in
opposite directions at different speeds and i listen to
the slowing sound of my breathing, i lie next to this
woman who used to be my lover, the two of us no
longer near the center of the universe, an approximate
lifetime of pulling away, of empty words, mouths
filled with clay, hands bound, hearts turned inward,
and i’m afraid here and i’m lost and i’m afraid