the commies next door

they're a sweet couple

next door,

the communist slash socialist

people

who recently moved in,

they wear

red berets

and are always bringing

me over

cold soup

and the stale bread they

make.

i see them in their grey

trousers

and big shouldered suits

planting potatoes

all day,

milking their goat,

and feeding seed to

their one chicken.

they want me to join the club.

to become

one of them.

they tell me about the next

march,

or protest they plan

on going to.

they have a poster of Bernie

framed

on their living room

wall, next to Stalin

and Chairman Mao. AOC,

and Elsayed.

i saw them the other day

reading popular

mechanic

magazines in their back yard.

they talk longingly about

the old Soviet Union,

the Berlin Wall.

how cozy and poor the people were,

but not unhappy,

per se.

they spend a lot of time

in their cellar, doing something,

i don't know what,

but i can hear the banging

of metal,

the stripping of wires,

and smell the whiff

of gunpowder if the windows

are open.

they're

playing around with strange

packages,

i suppose.

they often tell me with

wide toothy smiles, 

both needing dental

care,  that one day the world

as we know it

will no longer be here.