4C

Building manager's email:

Unit 4C is now vacant.

Maintenance this week.

Six years next door. I knew

the sound of their lock turning,

the smell of their cooking

through the shared wall—something

with cumin. Something with oil.

Never spoke. Not once.

Not in the elevator,

not at the mailboxes. I couldn't

pick their face from a photo.

The peephole dark now.

Small glass eye with nothing

looking back. I walked past it

the way I always have.