Thoughts of a Very Old Apartment
Winter is approaching.
I feel it in my floorboards; in my baseboards;
in every nook and cranny.
I wait to be filled again at this time of Thanksgiving, and
As I wait, sounds of the past linger in my consciousness:
The excited moans of the men and of the women (some of whose
first introduction to me came from being carried across my threshold)
as they lay close together in their bed late at night;
The strange incessant wailing of babies that later arrived -
wailing that later changed, more often than not, into squeals of glee.
Some of the families I sheltered engulfed me with heaviness.
In those years, I was assaulted by loud shouting,
much like the barking of dogs from outside.
Those shouts were often met by shrill hysterical screams
or even by the sad sobs of children.
One sound stays with me like a ghost: the quiet weeping
of one lone occupant who held a gun to his head.
In an instant I felt his blood splatter against my walls.
I prefer to remember the touch of the children:
their small smudged fingers exploring my kitchen cupboards;
their tiny warm bodies scooting across my tiles.
On one unusual occasion, a child scribbled happily
on my bathroom walls with bright Crayola colors.
After the explosion of his mother’s angry words,
the bathroom was transformed, and with magic paper
a small part of me was wearing the figures of gold and purple fish.
Forty times or more I’ve been left; then re-inhabited.
Several times I’ve been overhauled: my carpet torn out, a new one laid;
my doors and my fixtures changed for modern ones;
my furnace and my pipes (even once a ceiling) - all replaced.
But lately, I’ve felt so weary, and even renovated, I’m feeling out of place.
Just last month as I was emptied and cleaned for the umpteenth time,
I heard the newest landlord tell his wife:
We won’t have to put up with this crap anymore -
not after we get the offer from those guys who want to build a mall.
I wonder what he meant. My heat and water both have been cut off for so long.
Usually a couple is here by now. But only silence echoes through my halls,
and I’m growing so very cold.
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