Hit the Ceiling, Hit the Floor

We’re two flights up from unobserved

With couches made from cargo crates

Wednesday we went fishing for our neighbors

By dropping a hook down with a note attached that said—

‘Do you even know we’re up here?’

I try to look up at the people above us

But the light gets in my eyes

Sometimes we make noise

Hit the ceiling, hit the floor

Just to see if we’ll hear brooms

Or feet

Or nothing

And it’s always

Always nothing

But there is an ocean view

And the gulls do fly high enough

For us to see their backs

Without straining our eyes

You sleep on the carpet now

And I don’t sleep at all

In the Fall, we’re going to move

To a lower level floor

We’re looking forward to the cooler air

And the softer light

Broken down by distance

Broken down to manageable rays

But we said that last winter

And when the time came

We found we couldn’t go down

Only higher, only deeper

Through the clouds

We wonder if eventually

We’ll wind up

Living with God

But something tells us

We passed by

A few floors ago

And didn’t even know

Because the light got in our eyes