What the Neighbors Know

Melanie McCabe

What the neighbors know is so small it might fit in my mailbox. 

 I wish they would put it there, unfolded, explicit（明确的）, so I could be 

 certain of what they think they saw, the shaky black-and-white 

 reel they have colorized, the beginnings and middles cobbled（铺鹅卵石） 

 to find their way to the end. 

No one will sign his name. Each separate letter will be cut 

 from newspapers, magazines, to keep the scales of knowing 

 unbalanced: We have a piece of your life that we plan to torture 

 into something we recognize. We want more pieces. But 

 even then, we won't give you this one back. 

I once had all of their names but didn't keep them. Did they 

 keep mine? If we passed each other in some far-off town, 

 I wouldn't know them, though I have lived beside them 

 for nearly thirty years. Anonymity is a chosen loneliness, 

 but a secret in a cul-de-sac has a fleeting life. 

Their eyes on my comings and goings, my middling tragedy, 

 are a kind of extortion（勒索，敲诈）, even if they never open their mouths. 

 If I do not give them reasons, they will think I had none. 

 If enough people paint me a heart of pitch, a rudderless（无指导者的） 

 integrity, how could all of them be wrong? 

Whatever the neighbors know, it is not enough, but the rest 

 of the story is not mine to tell. See me, then, half in shadow. Or 

 turn me, if you must, toward your lurid light. I will grow older, 

 quieter, until no one believes the tale you pin on me. I will wear 

 sensible shoes. I will outfox you by being too dull to be bad.