Just one minute. I want
to scream. I shot him. He advanced
with a suspicious face. Who knew his pockets
were empty, his bag full of clothes.

Perhaps he didn’t have a work permit,
or once stole across the border. Perhaps he didn’t hear
my hands shouting, the blood
pounding in the chest, knocking on my temples.

Sometimes he wakes in my sleep
hard as lead, empty as the wind,
he says to me: My killer,
I never knew
you were of that kind.