I find myself waving back at myself

so I guess this must be a dream

I am stood in a driveway with my shirt untucked

looking for all the world like a sore loser

waving at the only man I can trust with my secrets

and the one I despise almost viscerally

a light rain is falling, dimpling the blood red dust

myself waves back with a wry smile

like someone pulling a rabbit out of a hat

it is pointless to speculate what the two of us are thinking

but there is a family stood in the middle of the street

doing just that

gazing slack-jawed at the spectacle

of me waving back at me all robe and slippers

a car speeds by and blasts its horn shrill as principle

a puppy whimpers and squirms in the little girl’s arms

as the mother ferries her future to the kerb

hissing at me like the villain and his sidekick

the little girl seems to have mistaken me

for that man yelling empty promises three nights ago

from the door of a purring taxi two doors down

he wore cheap gabardine that winked in the moonlight

and seemed to have left his kind self in a mirror somewhere