Next Door

She wears a turban now
The Margaret Hamilton lady
She used to put her dishwater-gray hair in a bun
What’s left now is hidden underneath the tight knots of the turban
Looking like the last cream puff at the party, gone sour and hard

Her kids and friends and relatives will sit smoking on the porch
Whispering, with their heads seemingly made of lead
Low and heavy

Wisps of burned tobacco, gently curling past the No Smoking sign on the door,
Hang pensively in the afternoon air for a moment
Like a doppleganger getting its last breath of the living world