You get into a habit
of knowing the hours
the neighbours keep.
The Lithuanians left
moved on and I
still look for lights in blank
windows
but
no slippers wait on the floor
by the french doors
for their return
the waft of cigarette smoke
from their veranda
no longer pervades our hall
full bodied bass and treble
volume
vibrates our ornaments
from the shelves no more.
In the garage
where once thumped
exercise machines
and sculptured flesh and muscle
pumped and puffed
pushed weights and grunted
to the rhythmic breaking
of pain
barriers
silence settles damply.
The lonely wind
funnels deadletters
into the gutters
parodies the ice maiden's
roller- blades' grinding whir
the backstreet yawns
devoid of foreign cars
black as a sleeping cat
eyes closed tight
without the relentless blue
of Vlad's LED alarm
flash. flash. flash. flash.
