The Dim Tenements

What, I asked my father, is behind a wall?

When you see a lit window through the rain

down a dark street, who lives there?

When a car swishes past after midnight,

sudden and decisive, where is it going?

The voices in the alley, laughing and sobbing,

what are they talking about?

My father sighed and rolled his eyes

while blinking furtively—it was an expression

he had perfected during the fall of Narva—

and cracked his knuckles, a hollow sound.

He explained: behind the wall is another wall.

The rain doesn’t know itself. The car is fleeing.

The voices have no idea what they are saying.

When you come to the lit window at the end of life

I will be waiting for you. But the room will be empty.