IT’S TEN P.M.

… and I don’t know

where my children are they

have hurtled the fences wandered

out through the open

gate owning

themselves now

I feel around

in empty pockets rummage

in cluttered drawers count

pennies I’ve collected the sum

is staggeringly small.

Why is it we believe

the lies we tell

when comforting ourselves

to sleep: time

and change extract

a reasonable cost.

Beside the window watching

shadows rearrange

the empty street it’s ten p.m.

and I not they am lost.