To Hear a Stranger's Breath

To hear a stranger’s breath

expelling –

  What are the worries weighing,

     pushed   from your chest?

What space is there from me to you?

Are you without a mother, too?

The bathroom is vacant

‘til you

     are there –

clean green tiles,

it smells like a

   crayon I

     had as a child –

Flush, flush

our hands are soaped
the way
they taught us;

they taught us just the same.

I chance

a mirrored glance

  and you do, too –

Now what is the distance from me to you?