Suspicious Activity

Two men move in next door

They don’t meet my eye, don’t smile

In the afternoons they play an audio file

in a foreign language, loud angry voices of men

chanting in unison

The apartment building booms

floorboards vibrate

Placing a glass jar to the wall

I listen to their Skypes

Send more money . . .

We need more money . . .

I don’t understand the context

but it sounds dangerous

At my computer, I type up

a detailed description of my observations

naming the document “Unusual Suspicious Activity”

I add evidence to it every day

In the evenings, I go to the balcony

and take pictures of their lighted window

Ordinary life: cooking

typing on their laptops

Occasionally, they sit on the windowsill, smoking

casting large shadows over the trees below

When they move out after a few months

I feel lost, unoccupied

One day

I find an envelope in my mailbox

In the frame of a lighted window, a woman

cooking at a stove top, or else

staring into the garden

Here she’s undressing, here

with her phone, blue light

over her face

I examine the details: this sliver

of a new moon reflected in a windowpane, that

sparkle of ice in a glass