Apartment Living

1. Sights

In early April mourning doves
spiral and surge under the crumbled shingles
above my windows. They throw out
curling flashes of taupe and cream
against the paint-splashed panes
and the cat races from the kitchen
to the living room, trying to follow,
his movements manic, liquid.

On the street squat, balding Jim
in gray sweatpants
unloads laundry and bottled water
from his beige Astro van.
Dark hair swirls around his bald spot
like an iris around a pale pupil.

Coming down the stairs, I see Kevin
trekking toward the rutted alley
with his kayak over his head,
short legs and an oversized hat,
on his way, through the St. Joe River
blanched with sewage gas, to work.

Sometimes I surprise Ted
smoking on the cement patio
with his only friend.
They always stand up and say hello,
two portly, gray-faced men
with pouchy wrinkled eyes and
mustached, gap-toothed smiles.

A month ago a police raid
shrieked through the streets.
From my darkened apartment I peered
through miniblinds at houses
blinking in the savage,
festive beams of blue and red.

2. Sounds

In the kitchen Simon’s clawless paws
thump and patter an intermittent jig
on the cracking linoleum tiles
as he captures his insurgent tail.

On Saturdays Jim’s Hoover
growls and snarls over his carpets
below my living room.
While he listens to Bette Middler
or watches soaps, I put on Ray LaMontagne
or Chris Thile to mute the buzz
crawling up the walls.

Sometimes, late at night, Kevin,
who lectures in Spanish at a local college,
listens loudly to Latin music
in his living room below my bedroom.
I used to stumble down the stairs
and knock on his door in the dark
wearing my green robe and red slippers
to ask, in my saddest sleep-scratchy voice,
for him to turn it down.
Now I cram orange plugs in my ears
and burrow under the covers.

If I stand for long enough in
my quaint and tiny bathroom,
over the small free-standing sink blue
with worn enamel,
I can hear, over the ear-grating hum
of the dying fluorescent light above the mirror,
Ted coughing across the hall.

3. Smells

Opening the shabby brown door,
I step into leftover onion and garlic,
laced with growing plants in dirt
and the faint underlay of cat litter.
Sometimes the kitchen smells
of raw chicken.

When Santos comes to shut off our heat
for the summer, I will tape
garbage bags over the old black
metal register grates and cover them
with bathroom rugs that match the carpet,
to keep out the stale, persistent perfume
of burning cigarettes.

After I pull up the covers and turn off the light,
I can smell Kevin, who keeps weird hours,
cooking. Gourmet vegetarian, organic
garlic, tomato, masala, curry odors pour
through the vent in the wall next to my bed.
I close my eyes and try not to dream of food.

Coming or going, up or down
the dirty, stained stairwell that I share
with Ted, I sometimes smell nicotine, tar,
unwashed old man, ancient cat and
ancient cat piss, and sour unscrubbed breath.
I sometimes smell the full, wet steam
of my shampoo and Dial soap.
I sometimes smell Ted’s sister’s cheap cologne
or the grease from onion-frying beef.

When I push open my sticky, warped windows,
I catch the sharp clean smell of snow,
the smoke of wood-burning furnaces,
the rich awakening of the earth in the yards,
the asphalt taint in rain.
Neighborhood kids of mingled races clamor
in the streets. They climb cars
and dart after balls and spat with sticks.
Through the pavement on the streets,
the red lines of bricks are wearing free.