Bodies
Just yesterday in conversation, cocktail party chatter really,
came the line unbidden: “he had bodies stacked up in his apartment.”
So somehow you must have known. You were told then, yes?
Or you would not have remembered so casually, just yesterday.
…
Two decades ago the world was only a baby’s face, his relentless needs.
It was not easy to see things outside the baby’s gaze.
If a stranger was kind, that might be the only thing you noticed;
help unloading the groceries goes a long way with a tiny despot in your arms.
…
Be careful around that guy, said your husband. He has a screw loose.
But Joe was gone most of the long winter. The stranger shoveled the walk without being asked,
helped pull the stroller out of the car when your arms were full,
tiny kindnesses that saved you from lonely madness.
…
The dog fell ill during the last great snowstorm.
A long, slow agonizing death. Poison, said Joe.
But who would poison the dog? you asked.
Someone who wants you to be alone at night, he responded.
…
One evening the dinner dishes were washed, baby asleep.
The man came by, leaned against the door without knocking,
you could hear him breathing as he whispered: Let me in, I have something to shooooow you,
in a deep whiskey slur, playful but used to being obeyed.
…
You summoned pleasantness:: Shhh! Baby’s asleep!
Good manners might be the soft place where his menace died.
When you didn’t answer further wheedling,
Blessedly you heard him shuffle down the stairs.
…
Soon he was back with a radio, which he played in the hall
while he danced, singing out your name, saying
You’re no better than me! You’re just like me!
Sometimes thudding into the door, frame shuddering.
…
When Joe came home and found you in the dark, he said
it’s your own damn fault, you never should have looked at him.
You went to the police together, baby asleep in your arms.
Joe doing all the talking, you, mute, protected by the men.
…
The man did not speak to you again. He just brushed that one time
past Joe in the parking lot between the garden apartments.
No need to call the police, the man said, too angry to look
Joe in the eye. You could have just said something.
…
Spring finally came, the sun warming the ground to mud.
A sickly-sweet smell grew in the gravel parking lot.
Was it garbage, or dog mess on your shoe?
You kept looking around, wondering what you’d done.
…
After a few days you couldn’t escape the smell of rot.
Was it a bag of trash you left on the back porch?
A rat dead in the walls? Joe shook his head at his bad little housewife,
gagging on the smell even above the cleaning knife edge of Chlorox.
…
One day Joe said they found bodies stacked everywhere in that man’s apartment.
Joe, who, when you saw him, was your ambassador from the outside world.
With the baby walking it was difficult to pay attention to anything else.
But you only remembered the stranger’s kindness.
…
Until this day when you were trying to tell a grown up story,
and remembered the grown up things,
the details too far on the edge of remembering
when the baby was small.
2/17/21
