I don’t get involved in my neighbors’ lives
and they don’t get involved in mine.
On the Maginot line of the morning steps,
I meet the twins. Their ponytails testify
they’ve been drafted into the children’s army.
Under their slanted lashes, in their distant, frightened glances,
I see my reflection,
old witch from downstairs,
as if holding the mystery of life in my hands.
To be my age is to know
that old is a matter of more or less
longing,
and the divider between us is made of the same imaginary stuff
of which the self is made.
The neighbor pants as she mounts the stairs, refuses
to let me take her bags.
Even just one might involve her
in a dead end, if I get sick, or need a lemon or some flour.
Hello, the word doesn’t penetrate through the music
loaded in the adolescent girl’s ears,
lifting her straight up into her wonderful life.
Good morning, Marcella, good evening,
the new neighbor entered her apartment
and hasn’t shut the door since. Her bird’s head
tilts on top of her tall body.
She doesn’t know I know that she knows
that there is nothing a closed door can stop
from entering or leaving.