Partition

It wasn't the words but the way the air shook

when the neighbor’s voice hit the plaster and lath.

I didn't need to go over and take a look

to feel the heat of that muffled wrath.

Then the bass from a stereo started to thrum,

a low, rhythmic bruise through the bedroom wall.

I sat on the floor, feeling my own heart go numb,

listening to the nothingness of it all.

The deadbolt clicked with a heavy, brass sound,

a final period at the end of the night.

We are all just animals, burrowed and bound,

kept apart by the drywall and light.