Friendship

by Austin Alexis

If she had been standing there, in her kitchen,

or there or even over there

close to the frig, while she prepared dinner,

she would have been struck

by the bullet

or the bullets.

But my pal wasn’t stationed

            in the center

                        or the side

            of her kitchen

because she was gabbing

with me

on her phone,

the blessed landline handset

smack-dab in her living room’s alcove.

In those days, during summery afternoons

guns popped

even in good areas

(like her “safe” “heavenly” one, near the Hudson)

due to the lingering crack epidemic.

At that 4:00 p.m. hour, her kitchen rained

            glass

                   shards

                           exploding

like random atrocities

in her first-ever apartment.

Ear pressed to the receiver, I

flinched, hearing the commotion.

Later, that night, she explained the scene to me:

the ghostly bullet holes, nervous cops, snooping reporters,

the bruhaha of her neighbors.

The odor of her fear boomeranged from wall to ceiling

to floor to wall.

During the following weeks, even months afterwards,

she never said I saved her life.

Yet, the sobering circumstances of that day

           moved between us, murmuring,

always there

like a rumbling river separating two states.

Or joining them.