Rear Window

i woke in a flash, like i’d been drawn into my body from somewhere else,
like a tunnel that’s fast fast fast fast fast, tumbling, then light
and my eyes open as the scene focuses into view.

i move to the table, light candles, open a notebook
and stare at their laughter through the trees.
a dog is barking at some terrible distance.
the tea is on. she is sleeping.

there’s a candle across the way--
there’s laughter in the window.
they laugh so rarely.

i would see him some times, standing at the window, smoking.
before they put the shades in.
before the air conditioner,
which appeared only after we had watched them for nights,
watched them scream and yell and fight and cry--
they felt our eyes, saw us watching somehow,
and closed themselves against it.

the time before last, when they fought,
she screamed, “you’re disgusting.”
she screamed, “i hate you.”
she screamed, “i’m wasting my life with you.”
she tried her hardest to get him to hit her,
before collapsing, balled on the floor.
I stayed away from the window after that--
stayed where I couldn’t hear them.

“I remember when that apartment was gutted,” Kristina says.
you could hear them then, too, throwing things out the window,
crashing in to the courtyard.
“and now, some sad, lonely people live there.”
they’re laughing now.

she says beautiful things when she’s stoned.
terrible, beautiful things.
i listen to her and think, “how true.”
i listen to her and think, “i wish she’d stop talking now.”
i listen to her and think, “i love this woman.”
i listen to her and think, “who is this person that we’ve become?”

what does it look like to them, in the apartment across the courtyard,
through the budding tree?
there are plants in our window,
a jungle of plants stacked on shelves,
hanging from nails, crawling up the expanse of glass.
a lit candle
lots of tea and lots of nakedness
and writing at the table
and looking across, wondering,
do they feel this, too?

the fear and joy,
vacillating with infinite possibilities, infinite failures.
the cars in the street, the passing music.
the box fan’s shadow refracted from the other room,
into the corner.

i used to watch the sun rise--you should see it sometime.
everything’s changed. everything’s exactly the same.

enough already.
the sun comes up on four of us.
our candles go out.

Charles Imbelli 2010