The Neighbor
I believe in
The light
In the window
Across the street.
I believe in love like that.
I've seen the room before,
In ochre skies
And in passing -
Years ago when the curtains stayed open,
And on loud days,
Went dancing.
There's a desk
Pressed against the
Paned glass,
A coiled home phone that used to
Cast curly-headed shadows by a honey desk lamp;
A boxy,
Fatty desktop
Where the man's hair would take
Peeks from behind.
His wife
Would slide herself upon
His desk,
Press her back to the window
And there,
She would sit with him;
Casting her own curled
Shadow
As the yellow
Shut down.
The curtains used to
Spread itself
Apart,
Butter kissing the early sky
At early hour,
When the mourning doves
Bowed their weepy heads
When he had early calls -
And I would see,
On my stiff walk
One knee bent to the other -
To the bus stop;
The woman walks in
With mug in hand -
She'd leave him with coffee,
Steal a book
And leaf through
Its comparable nothingness
And they room there,
Together.
I would walk a little faster,
But I should have slowed
For them.
As time went,
And sun went,
Too
The pink bleeding into
Blue,
Midnight,
Gold,
And flu -
As stained glass,
From a sullen church,
Painting itself onto the man's
Empty head
Peeking from behind the desktop
As the drapes
Waltz
Less
And
Less.
Sunday morning,
We read his name
For breakfast
In the bulletin,
And then again
Next week...
The week after...
Then two more.
Then the window went silent,
And the door below had traffic -
Casserole trays
At the door's stoop;
Lasagna
And roses...
Then the porch died, too,
And the window didn't breathe
Again for a while.
Then there was honey again.
The curtain stayed dormant,
But it had a yellow heartbeat -
Casting both
A dead, curled telephone
And a woman's
Curly-headed
Shadow amongst
The glass
As art.
She read, again,
In the room -
The window so feverishly
Kissed the curtain
As she stamped her back to it
Like she used to.
And when the sun woke up,
Again,
Because it never stopped
Rising -
I could see her figure
Amble in with a cup of coffee
But she was the only one there
To drink it
And she did.
The mourning doves called
My slow walk to the bus stop -
And she followed his routine,
Existing where he breathed.
The light went on
In the window
Across the street
Nearly every night,
And now it was curls
And femininity
Peering from
The dormant desktop -
And she simply sat.
The window's darker
When she drapes herself
To the glass -
The table lamp bleeds the room, golden -
The coffee cup is dark through
Sheer curtain -
Her hair a much louder silhouette.
It is simply
Just her
Residing in
His
Room;
There is no work to be done in there,
No reason to turn on the light;
But the light went on
In the window across the street,
And I believe in it...
I believe in love like that.
[Untitled]
I can tell that she can't
Drive by her feet.
Tattered and unkempt;
A wet green,
And far from white.
"There are snakes."
Of course there are.
They were supposed to grow wings,
And milk,
Be short
And be silk.
No,
Those are caterpillars.
"He was supposed to love me."
"He said he would."
"Just not now."
A snake can't shed his skin in a day,
But you should wait a week.
"But the sun can take the dead under in a day."
"Go to bed with them as the gold foes down."
But the gold is here forever.
The mirror atop divots in waves,
The wrist your mother wears,
The stains that melt into leaves, they're always more than a simple green,
The skin of some walking men,
The emblem on spines,
The widow's left finger,
The bottles in parlors,
The sighing watts,
And the bones of the water.
That's where the dead goes.
"It'll be a week."
"Sundown."
"Since he said he'd love me."
Does he love you?
She has two dots on her
Feet,
Beautiful if they were freckles.
The price you pay as a walking woman.
"No."
You have a day.
But no matter the morning,
The gold will always be there
In how you paint your fingernails
The gull-stamped sand,
The flutter of eyes, looking up
The glow of a midnight highway
And a champagne toast.
Her feet shall always have
Two dots -
And them, too, will be gold at sundown,
And you shall pray that all the driving men
See is beauty.
"I'll sleep with the sun."
He drives by,
She walks past.
Lord, give her silver skin shoes.
And don't get lost in a week -
For the dusk will never forget.
The dead are everywhere, gold girl:
Don't rely on night.
Michaela Garrahan '26 is a passionate writer at East. She plays flag football, participates in a variety of clubs, and works hard in school. Her debut poetry collection, Everything We Fail to Say, was published last year.