It was fair well and good bye

as my neighbor left home last night.

Our homes are so close together I can hear them and they can hear me

in everything we do.

Watching TV, cooking, fucking,

the sounds travel.

He left her last night. She knew,

he had decided to be with another woman or another man

I was not too clear on what was happening.

I went to her house the next morning,

stepping carefully through the white stones of their Japanese garden

they had built together two years ago.

I remember about six months ago

The weeds came up through the stones,

so I made up some poison and killed them for her.

He had stopped coming home

and the garden began to rot.

Knocking on the front door she took a long time to answer

but when she came

I found her

black and tearful;

death in her eyes.

She said little but let me in and we sat opposite each other

in the front room. The sun came in the windows and curled up on the carpet

to sleep like a cat. My left foot was in the light and it began to feel warm.

She is Japanese, he was from here in the city

and they had been in love.

Sometimes love is not enough.

I asked her some questions and she nodded and said things sadly.

A ribbon of black hair feel down her right cheek and her eyes

flashed at me.

Her heart is full of love, I can tell,

but her eyes are full of death.

It was then that I realized we would not talk much again and that this moment

might be all I ever get of her for the rest of my life.

So I spent as long as I could, sitting, talking,

before I had to leave to sit alone in my house.

Wishing I had someone like her.