|
|
|
And Words Are All I Have
|
Apartment 110
|
|
|
|
You find the family you need.
|
|
said Marilyn, an agoraphobic and hoarder,
|
who lived in the one bedroom to my right.
|
|
She appeared at my apartment door at three one morning
|
|
to announce in a whisper,
|
That was it: Three words.
|
|
She told me once she suspected her European husband
|
|
was a spy and didn't trust him.
|
|
A slippery tyrant, she called him,
|
|
Gruff and scowling, he passed people in the halls without a word,
|
|
and played Wagnerian opera every Sunday morning.
|
|
So loudly it knocked a picture off my wall once,
|
breaking the glass and damaging the photo beneath it.
|
|
Furiously, impetuously, I headed next door.
|
|
When he finally appeared,
|
|
I felt there in that instant,
|
|
the fear that Marilyn lived with next door in Apartment 110
|
who would pay dearly for my unbridled anger.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Somewhere between the Canna lilies and the Delphinium Blue King, he started in on mask wearers. A local, I could tell, the turns of phrase and the mandatory team jersey. He had already launched into his rant when I pulled my truck into the lot of the garden centre, sermonizing before a small sullen crowd about the Nano particles …
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
