My Neighbour
by David Groulx p. 22, A Difficult Beauty (Wolsak And Wynn, 2011)
the cops were here
yesterday
took George’s five kids away
I saw George in the window
waving goodbye to his children
his 400-pound frame
looked like rain
it’s quiet and dark
there now
and sometimes
I can hear George weeping
It doesn’t matter how many times I read this poem, I feel it. The slant rhymes, the eh, eh, eh going through the poem like muffled cries themselves. The helpless sense of being witnesses to each other and at the same time unable to do anything but bear witness.