Apart

Above me in the night
My unknown neighbors walk
Across a creaking floor
And sometimes fight:

They shout in splattered red
And speak for hours in tongues
Without me knowing why
They sob in bed,

And when they go away
On summer nights I hear
Their neighbors higher up
Act their fierce play.

I don’t see anyone:
And yet I still believe
In all that jagged love
And love undone

And thinly live all week
And listen long and hard
To words from higher still
And just as bleak.