Eaves Dropping

In my Paris apartment,
With its antique wood
And heavy green curtains,
I can hear, through paper-thin walls,
The voices of neighbors.

Beneath me, lives a small cluster of boys,
Their airless room filled with smoke and house beats.

Above me, an old man sits quietly looking out the window,
The political debates humming in the background.

And just beside me, hanging on the other side of the mirror,
Is a middle-aged women and her gaggle of friends.
They wade knee-high in jams and teas.

Their voices occasionally flicker beneath our door,
Peering in our peep-hole, oozing through our locks.
And sitting quietly in the silence of my room,
I drain their conversations through my language ability,
A colander built from a sophomore semester of French.

I pull out a handful of words,
Then spend the rest of the day
Rearranging them on my pillow