Today's poem is Just the Same by Anne Rankin. It is read by Samaa Abdurraqib.
just the same
all those times the raising of our angrily married voices
sent the dogs scrambling for cover; how cruel
we were not to have held our tongues
in order to keep their peace.
in the year of our engagement,
dogless but hopeful we used to cringe
at the childless pair in the flat below
screaming the night away—
their coupled rage going projectile, objects flying
then crash-landing, walls teeming
with shrieking. worst of all,
their dog—unhappy witness to their sickness—
wimpering.
we'd see the woman and her hooded eyes
skulk to her car the next day, seemingly no worse
for wear, other than the whole downtrodden vibe.
the guy was another story; he'd creep over, flirt with me
when I took out the trash. we wondered
whether to call someone, if only for the dog's sake.
you said we shouldn't intrude, even though
he made me nervous.
and the dog.
there was the matter of the dog.
fistful of years later, our pre-divorced,
should-have-been-asundered selves
would inflict the same
wedlocked woe
on our own sweet dogs.
okay, maybe not that exactly—
no glass was ever smashed to shatters—but we broke
things just the same.