2015/neighbors

Listening to my neighbors fight
when a pounding noise exceeds
the yelling, I pause
as I sometimes do
and wonder if at last
one of them has succeeded
in killing the other.
Without questioning the
moral issue of the hope
that stops me mid-step
to listen.
I’ve given up that one
of them will leave,
relationships like this don’t end
which is why they are such misery
for all of us. So I’ve had to
resort to murder as my only
source of hope.
One of them dead the other
in prison for life.
I don’t care which way it lands,
though usually I picture him
behind bars, without chance of
parole – the only way I can live
free and in peace.
I see the cops hauling him off
his hands cuffed behind his back.
The sister who never visits
since the father died and he
moved in, will have to clean
the place up. A lot of bottles
to haul off I imagine,
and countless ashtrays to empty
where he violates his father’s rule
against smoking in the house.
Perhaps the loud barking dog
will have to be put down.
And the heathen grandsons who
yell outside my window all summer
and every weekend will never visit
again.
The house will go on the market
and a very nice deaf mute
will move in.

1/22/15