Perry Thompson

Jenny

Those who almost see are the most terrified.
-- Roethke

Next door the couple argues late,
shouts and threats and breaking glass,
duet of bones and harm together in the dark.
Something's pounding at the skull to get out.

At dawn they leave for work.
We watch them go.
Nights, arm in arm and slightly drunk, they sway and
giggle like any two.
And calm

only to argue again through the late-night wall.
My wife says it seems they scream at her.


From my journal --

On June 1 the couple moves away.
The rooms next door are quiet.
It's a hollow silence,
swirling like a conch shell paperweight
holding down a month's worth of bills.
Press it against the ear and hear the ocean roar.
It's a swarming silence.
Molecules pounding on the temporal bone,
pressing against the head.
Hear the bees roar.

On June 3 my wife hears them fighting again.
I laugh over coffee --
Jenny, you were dreaming. They're gone.
You know how you'll perfectly imagine the phone
ringing when you're in the shower?

June 7. Jenny wakes me hard.
She hears a buzzing in the room --
ghosts vibrating in the air.
Darkness twists, she
says, like visible voices.
Don't you hear it? Don't you see it?
Darling Jenny, you're dreaming again.
Let's get up, put on some clothes and drive awhile.

So circle the city on 285 one and a half times.
We talk about ghosts and dreams and lovers' quarrels.
Think it's OK to go home now? Will they be gone?

June 8. This is what she says to me --
There's a spaceship
coming to earth and the pilot is linking its thoughts to mine.

It's a stark landscape
where we wait and watch.
Go to the drug store.
Expect this to be only what it is -- a trip across
town, how not to spend a day.
What will she say? What will she do?
Fold the laundry.
Feel the sting.

June 9 and she finally
knows what's being said to her --
instructions in voices and ghosts.
She strains to remember it all,
muscles rigid and eyes wide.
She doesn't sleep much.
Her skin reddens.
Her body is warm to the touch.

What does the pilot say?
I can't tell you.
Jenny, how can I help you?

June 11. Jenny's always with it now.
She's stopped eating,
sleeps only in deep naps
that last a few moments, then
jerks awake to pace and pace, listen and listen.

Jenny, what can I do?
What can I do?

June 25. I call her parents.
They say don't go to the hospital
today. There's been no change.
The doctors won't tell us shit.
The doctors don't know shit.

Not much sleep lately,
alone most of the time.
Coltrane's on the player.
The bed is hot.
The window's wet.
Don't hear any voices, don't see any ghosts.

On June 30 a couple moves in next door.
Almost immediately the arguments begin.

Perry Thompson was born in Georgia in 1950. He graduated from high school in 1966. Two years running he was awarded first place in Columbia University's Gold Circle Award For Poetry for which he received a nice letter. He holds no college degrees. Mr. Thompson has been previously published in Columbia Review, Dekalb Literary Arts Journal, Lonesome Virgin and Chattahoochee Review. A civil rights and anti-war activist during the '60s, Mr. Thompson has been handcuffed, spit on, hosed down, beaten up and generally abused by his fellow Americans. He currently resides in Key West with his wife, Marsha, and their cats, Bramble and Midnight. Mr. Thompson is the proprietor of Rainy Day Records.