First Apartment Near St. Mary’s T Stop

By BRETT FOSTER

I recollect at last those first few weeks
on Beacon Street: broke newlyweds, we hid
our finite riches in a little room,
a basement studio whose cost seemed gruesome.
Fresh from Corpus Christi, you learned to speak
a northern language, talk of “quarters” wide-
mouthed like a Chowdahead’s wicked idiom.

That strangeness resonates as echoed heirloom.
November then alive with many things,
we bundled up, explored the neighborhood.
The couple at the Busy Bee would bring
their frenzied fighting there, and Chinese food—
just half a block away! Some days we stood
at our door to mark the room’s great reckoning.