Good Girl

I hear her voice
outside my door the sound creeps under, kurva, she whispers
scared someone will hear her, most of all me.
I hear her. I think she hates herself.

In the morning she sweeps the stairs for a rent reduction
and her husband drinks bruçak from 8, he fights
downstairs, outside. Sometimes she bakes bread
for the caretaker, whose wife is useless.

She walks to Delvita, comes out laden
with bags, sits to catch breath and rest her feet. I wonder
if being fucked at life gives
you fat ankles. I watch her from my balcony.
She thinks I am reading, Seifert, but I am watching
always watching.

I keep myself to myself, I smell the gulaš in her kitchen
she cooks daily, her children fight but
her husband says nothing. She raises her voice and I think, yes
she is not happy. My mouth waters. I will eat out tonight.

I love the men I sleep with, sometimes briefly, but the love is there
and it's real. She brings in clothes from the balcony line
cracks a shirt in the air. A whip for his back.
Dropping pegs into a tub on the floor she curses her life. Under her breath.
Tomorrow when she slices onions, I will cry for her.