Girl on the Twelfth Floor

There’s a girl in apartment 12B 

who’s carved out a space so sad and silent 

it echoes like the hollow of a tired moon. 

.

How do I know? 

she never looks at me, 

never square in the face. 

her eyes glide past like I’m 

some miserable dog, 

a mouse scurrying under the fridge. 

when she does look, 

it’s a quick blink, 

a flinch of light snapping off— 

as if her lashes could erase me, 

make me vanish like old smoke 

that hangs too long in a cheap bar. 

.

We pass on the stairs sometimes, 

she rushing down from her kingdom on twelve, 

me crawling up from the depths of three. 

three's my lucky number, 

which is a joke, 

because luck left me behind 

when the city swallowed me whole. 

.

Sundays, I see her in her clean, neat armor, 

a white bible tucked in her arms 

like a newborn she doesn't trust the world to hold. 

.

She moves like Sunday mornings belong to her, 

and maybe they do. 

I wonder what church takes her in, 

where she sits on a wooden pew, 

whispering her prayers while I rot 

on the other side of town 

with a beer and no god to listen. 

Sometimes I think I’ll follow her, 

find her church, sit in the back, 

and let her God see me, 

just once, just enough 

to call me lucky.

.

I think she wears a small cross 

on her neck, 

slender and pale like something 

painted in winter. 

but I’m not sure, 

because I’ve never been close enough 

to know if the cross is gold, silver, 

or just imagined. 

.

I pray sometimes— 

not for me, but for her— 

for her to look at me 

just once, 

with a kindness that doesn’t 

slam the door in my face. 

.

I pray she’ll slow down 

on the stairs, 

won’t pull her coat tight like I’m the cold, 

won’t blink so fast like I’m the nightmare. 

.

Maybe I’ll save enough, 

move up to twelve, 

get an apartment with a view 

of the same city that chewed us both up. 

Maybe I’ll meet her in the basement, 

in the laundry room, 

both of us waiting for the machine 

to stop spinning. 

.

Maybe then, 

in that damp quiet, 

I’ll say hello, 

and she’ll blink slow, 

not to erase me, 

but to let me stay. 

.

But maybe not. 

maybe I’ll stay here on three, 

watch her on the stairs, 

and let my prayers 

go unanswered. 

that’s the kind of luck 

I’m used to. 

.

© R Gordon Zyne