Would your ashy roots dare tell of the boy 
upstairs, the boy with grey eyes like the ones 
that stared back at you every morning before
coffee burned away your marijuana mist?

Remember his lemon-blond hair, the shade 
peroxide couldn’t buy you? How you envied 
its gloss, even as it stuck to the grape 
jelly on his cheek and the smile you thought you saw
just once, his pinked toddler lips so unlike
those of deep wine you painted on yourself.

Would you share your memory of the last 
time you heard him, stoned as you were alone
when the walls above shook off their plaster
and the floor bounced the boy’s wails back for more?

Did you hear the fracture of his bones or 
did you dream the silence that sealed the room
in yellow tape to keep the curious away? 
You’d never dared climb the stairs and would not 
then until later, when a too-young teen pushed 
her over-ripe belly, and you with her, 

up. You looked, you gawked at the mocha stain 
on the wall in the bedroom with a crib 
leaning against the window when she asked
When can I move in?

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