terror

Ladies and gentlemen, turn on your ears
in honer of a small moment of horror:
the bus as it pulls away from the curb,

a child and a car as they zoom past
beside you, narrowly miss the end
of a life. The thought of the cat

locked in your bedroom, the breath
or a stranger getting closer behind you,
the image of fire, caused by your

ownly hands. The teacher that asks you
unanswerable questions, the person
that never answers their phone

The creak of the staircase that wakes
up the sleeping, th surprise of the
car, that never slowed down.