Autumn House Press

The Landlord

Feigning sleep in his lawnchair on the front stoop
of my first apartment, he has made it all
but impossible for me to pass. I’m twenty-two,
he’s in his forties – some would call

him a devoted husband, a God-
fearing man, with his Amish beard
and eyes the color of fresh-turned sod.
Not yet having learned to fear

a man for what he might do, I speak
to him long and politely enough to get by.
The next morning I oversleep
and wake feverish, nightgown stuck to my thighs

as I stumble downstairs to put out the trash.
I hear the slow grind of a doorknob, and later
a sound at the foot of the stairs like an animal scratch.
He calls my name, and it rises like water

through the oil of my fevered half-sleep.
He says his wife has cancer, since she’s been sick
she’s closeted herself from him, as if to keep
her dying secret – that he’d be quick

and gentle, and tell no one. Would I just come
to the top of the stairs and let him look
at me? When I do, he exhales like some
poor crushed animal, and it takes what it took

Eve to say Yes for me to say No.
From the lace of my hem to the backlit hall,
he takes me in, slower than slow,
he drinks me down, ice and all.