Featured Poet Austin Alexis Page 1
Aftermath
The lady who lived in apartment # 13
never used to speak to me.
Then, one random week,
she started asking me
how I was doing
whenever she spotted me.
Later, I was to hear
from another neighbor’s derailed voice
that the woman in apartment 13
was taken to death by a brain tumor.
I should have solemnly sensed
some element was amiss,
a mist fogging the hallway
where we used to see one another.
I should have been the one
to combine courtesy with curiosity,
and a dose of compassion.
Now she has gone
before I was the first to inquire
how her days were going,
whether the globe was turning
too quickly and erratically for her,
whether she needed someone, anyone,
to ask about her health.