a voice of reason
he is outside on the street
shoveling the ice and snow
ten-thirty at night
he’s breaking the quiet
with scrapes of metal on concrete
we keep going from the living room
to the bedroom
trying to figure out where the noise
is loudest in our apartment
how we’re going to sleep
with this asshole clanking away
in the dead night
it sounds like he’s burying a corpse outside
the way the shovel clangs
when he hits the ground
he must have no sense of time
from the hallway we hear voices
it is his wife arguing with someone
a tenant who must’ve
complained about the noise
we hear them arguing
then we hear her outside calling to him
she is shouting for him to stop
he keeps going until a last patch of ice
is broken up and discarded
the he lights a cigarette
as her foreign voice melts
with the madness and moonlight
we smell the tobacco
as a bus makes its way up our street
he says something rough to her
she shouts again
then he tells her to shut up
irony in its purest form
at least the shoveling has stopped
they both go into the hallway
you can hear them going back and forth
for a few more minutes
her yelling
him hushing her
then there is silence
nothing but the buzzing of the streetlights
the night returns to what it always is on this street
ridiculous and incalculable
in its foolishness
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