We share the wall between us

Though that is nothing strange for us,
your domestic indiscretions
disturbed my day of rest
and altogether
inserted me in your unquiet
exchange.

I never thought to
see you in a state of rage
but more like it was your way
to be acknowledged-
it sounded like a language
you were apt to use fluently,
over coffee I heard frequently,
"Shut the F(lahdeedah) up!"

I thought while I adjusted to
the clean and silent sunlight displayed
across my sheets
that the two of you were outside
and from across the way,
like when she,
the manic banshee lady,
would shriek and tear her hair at
her husband and children around the
breakfast table
expletives and accusations
containing the entire thrust
of her assertions--

But no, I found out it was you
beneath me, and I heard
in your words the same
song and continued refrain that
had disturbed me for many
months of Sundays.

I stepped lightly through the door
into my kitchen
and engaged the coffee grinder,
then the stereo on a Sunday morning.
The sensations of slamming doors
and thrown objects into walls ran across
your ceiling and to my toes. And then
through tears and animal noises
I heard a man laughing,
encouraging you to rage;
pulling your warm frustrations between you
as an endless taffy distorts and sticks together,
both your altered voices from our
brief accustomed courtesies
feeding each other
to violence and the word, "Always."

Other things drift upwards and between apartments
smells and extra-curricular activities
slithering through wall spaces and pipelines,
but you made me stand witness in the very room
of your frustrations.

Not the same sounds that used
to wake me on Sundays,
moans and sighs loud enough
to invade my habitual earplugs,
still irreparably awake.
Giggling to myself in bed not quite alone,
I found I was in unrequested territory,
and then, too, I would stride through my house
engaging televisions and other noise-makers
until it was proper again for me to return,
giggling and shaking my head.

Not like now, though, no.