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Some Neighbors Refuse to Become Words<\/strong><\/p>\n Old Smoky came home last night. But there she finally was. Bitterness fights a soldier\u2019s war with beauty. He drinks himself into an early sleep. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tobi Alfier<\/strong> is a multiple Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee.\u00a0 Current chapbooks are The Coincidence of Castles<\/em> from Glass Lyre Press, Romance and Rust<\/em> from Blue Horse Press, and Down Anstruther Way<\/em> (Scotland poems) from FutureCycle Press. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review<\/em> (www.bluehorsepress.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some Neighbors Refuse to Become Words Old Smoky came home last night. We hadn\u2019t seen her in days. Standing in our front window, we could watch their big screen TV across the street\u2014pretty sure that porn at 65 inches wouldn\u2019t lure no one home for nothin\u2019. But there she finally was. Her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13714"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14082,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13714\/revisions\/14082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWe hadn\u2019t seen her in days.
\nStanding in our front window,
\nwe could watch their big screen TV
\nacross the street\u2014pretty sure
\nthat porn at 65 inches wouldn\u2019t lure
\nno one home for nothin\u2019.<\/p>\n
\nHer dime store perfume
\ncutting through the odor
\nof sticky-floored bookstore bullshit,
\nliars getting rolls of quarters, and tissues, for 15 seconds
\nof dirty feet and eyes rolling toward heaven,
\nher husband getting it all at home.<\/p>\n
\nWe know she knows if she stays,
\nshe\u2019s going down with the ship.
\nWe see her, but we don\u2019t know her,
\nwe can hear the click of her metallic Zippo lighter
\nbut we can\u2019t hear her beg for anyone\u2019s mercy.<\/p>\n
\nShe puts on a ball game and a peignoir
\nthe violet of the vanishing sky.
\nThe sadness of her wanderer\u2019s face is clear,
\njust before the curtains fall. We feel
\nvoyeuristic, dirty, and very very lucky.<\/p>\n