men in my house--1

There is a Slovinian poet in my basement and I have never seen him. Someone pointed him out to me on the street once. But all I could really see was a fedora and trench coat. As Descartes wrote, you don't really ever know if there is a person under that sort of attire. It could have been a five foot nine robot or scarecrow or a woman or some other guy. My house is pretty rickety. There are places in my bedroom where I can see strips of light through the cracks in the floorboards. I bet if I set my mind to it I could find a place where I could peer into the basement apartment. So far I have resisted. I know that he is down there because I can hear the door to his apartment squeak open and closed. Trash appears in the garbage can that we share. Sometimes his parking spot is empty and sometimes the car is there. Late at night I can hear a TV from down in the basement. Not loud enough to make out the dialogue, just that comfortable thrumming of an indistinct voice. Occasionally I even hear him, I suppose, talking on the phone in, I suppose, Slovinian. Then I strain to listen. I love listening to the music of someone speaking in a language I can't understand. I could run into this man, this Tomaz, in the supermarket and look him in the eye without ever knowing it. Maybe I already have. I could have sat beside him on a bus or at a lecture. I could have smiled at him in a coffeeshop and hoped that he would stop to say hello.