Guy Next Door
John Grey
The guy in the apartment
next to me
died.
A week ago
so the superintendent said.
It occurred to me
that I hadn’t seen
or even heard him
playing his stereo.
His choice was always Bach
in vinyl.
I never complained.
The “Well-Tempered Clavier”
always left me
feeling well
and even-tempered.
He’d loaned me a book,
Richard Farina’s
“Been Down So Long
It Looks Like Up To Me”
and now I guess it’s mine.
He always claimed
to be a turned-on
hung-up child of the sixties,
booted out of the house by parents,
despised by his two ex-wives,
long out of contact with his kids
a bad leg, an even worse eye
and living on social security.
In truth, I was his only family.
He lay seven days in bed,
smelling foul
and staring sightless at the ceiling.
That’s how close we were.
John Grey
The guy in the apartment
next to me
died.
A week ago
so the superintendent said.
It occurred to me
that I hadn’t seen
or even heard him
playing his stereo.
His choice was always Bach
in vinyl.
I never complained.
The “Well-Tempered Clavier”
always left me
feeling well
and even-tempered.
He’d loaned me a book,
Richard Farina’s
“Been Down So Long
It Looks Like Up To Me”
and now I guess it’s mine.
He always claimed
to be a turned-on
hung-up child of the sixties,
booted out of the house by parents,
despised by his two ex-wives,
long out of contact with his kids
a bad leg, an even worse eye
and living on social security.
In truth, I was his only family.
He lay seven days in bed,
smelling foul
and staring sightless at the ceiling.
That’s how close we were.