Apartment 10B
Whatever...
saw him day before yesterday buying groceries
said the price of living
was killing him
so we took the long way
along the Potomac
ice cream melting
milk sweating
in clingy plastic bags
dangling like fish
in my clammy hands
*
he sank his loose front teeth into a tangerine
spit out the seeds
lit a smoke
he said he never learned to tell a good joke
never once kissed a girl
he’d be willing to die for
*
started humming some old fool love song, clapping
his wide black hands out of time, sort of smiling
*
claimed he wanted to be a priest once
a long time ago, but every divinity had turned him down
*
eventually he stopped believing
*
happened this morning in his apartment
“Alone,” 13A was saying. “Heart failure or his kidneys. Maybe a stroke. Won’t know without an autopsy, and with him being so old and not having nobody—”
“Whatever,” I chirped
closing my front door
reflecting on the emptiness of my wallet
and the perpetual shallowness of my pathetic attempts
to be a good neighbor
when I had the chance
*
slipped down to the Potomac
with the morning paper
his last cigarettes
and that tangerine he’d given me
that I wasn’t planning on eating
*
peeled back the rind
lit a smoke
practiced a few one-liners
over and over
and over
until I got it right
***
Copyright © 07/04/2014 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.
About the Creator
Keep reading
More stories from Christy Munson and writers in Poets and other communities.
Why Just Write Is The Best Advice You Don’t Listen To
Before the last 6 months, I hadn’t written anything that wasn’t for my job or university for a number of years. I wanted to write more, I used to write all the time just for fun. I used to write poems and short stories that were just for me. I used to show them to certain members of my family but it was the process of writing them that I really enjoyed.
By Michael Naylor7 days ago in Motivation
Comments (1)
The poem's exploration of themes such as loneliness, mortality, and the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent world resonates deeply.