By John Grochalski
i hear two women from my building
talking outside
my living room window.
“have you seen the basement today?” one asks.
“no.”
“there are mountains of wine bottles
down there again, all with french names,
and not the good stuff, either.”
“rotgut?”
“yeah. and bags full of beer cans.
just the worst kind of swill.
“i wonder who it is that can
shove it all down?”
“i don’t know. but it’s a damned
shame, wasting their life like that.”
and then the women get to talking
about their kids, the weather,
and grocery shopping.
their conversation becomes mundane
as all conversations become mundane
until there is no more to say
and then it stops.
they have forgotten all about the
beer and wine bottles in the basement.
but i haven’t.
and as i continue to sit there, listening
for their next word, nursing a scotch,
and a beer and wine hangover,
i think i’ll probably fix another drink,
and then when that bottle is done
i’ll go and place it
with all of the others that i put
in the basement that morning,
and tomorrow those ladies will have
something else to talk about
to enrich their day.
*Author’s bio: John Grochalski is a writer from Brooklyn, New York, whose poems have appeared in the publications The Smoking Poet, The American Dissident, Lilliput Review and Blue Collar Review, among many others. His column “The Lost Yinzer” appears quarterly in The New Yinzer (www.newyinzer.com), and his book of poems The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (2008) is out via Six Gallery Press. His chapbook, Meditations On Misery With Women, is due out this fall from Zygote In My Coffee Press.
