Neighbourhood Watch
I can see right through the window of the couple
across the street, and they peer right into mine.
We’re used to this. By now, it’s just an ordinary
fact of our parallel lives. I don’t know their names,
wouldn’t recognize them if we came face-to-face
in the local L’InterMarché or métro station, but somehow
it never seems strange to watch through the placid glass
as they make love in the bath – with each other, or with
their lovers. I’m used to his hangdog look over the Sunday
Gazette, the frayed sleeves of her green nightgown, their
brunches of coffee, half-burnt toast and crêpes suzette;
their emptied mugs and plates of peaches or blood oranges
and that streak of the knife between them, slicing into fruit
and silence. Meanwhile, they see the slack plants on my sill,
the stacked books I use as a desk, my canned-soup suppers
and glasses of milk that I share with the cats; they count
my one-night stands and the wild animals I have painted
all over my walls. This rare encounter is made constant
through a window with the thickness of a mirror, yet
the reflections catch just a fraction of the larger shape
of things: we are only trying to stay alive, simply biding
time, lifting cups and spoons to our lips while keeping
an eye on each other. All things are dirty to the dirty-minded
but at least we know how to keep this visibility discrete –
never quite drawing the curtains, nor pulling down
the blinds. Always pretending not to watch, yet wanting
to be seen.
