I am hired after the management company is fired for not collecting the rent by Sharon Waller Knutson

The 19-year-old tenant
slides out from under
the Chevy leaking oil
in the driveway and
tosses his cigarette butt
on the lawn. Sorry
I can’t pay the rent
because I have car
payments. I hand him
an eviction notice.

His 17-year-old wife
stomps bare foot. I don’t have time
for this. I’m late for my math
class, I’ve been puking
all morning, my poor
grandmother is on Social
Security and thanks to you
she is broke. She slams
down a check on my desk.
By the way, she says, the faucet
is dripping, but the plumber
says it works just fine.

The mayor calls and says
the city is paying their rent.
Why? I ask. He beat
her and left her pregnant
and penniless. I look out
and see him changing a tire
flat as her belly as she
stands by the Chevy.
He is still here. The check
arrives in the mail.

The cigarette butts pile up
and oil drips in the driveway
daily as she tells me
about the termites, the ants,
the mice, the fried wires,
banging pipes. Something stinks.
I know something stinks
as the experts bill me
for their wasted time.

I’m stuck with them because
the rent checks keep coming
from the county, the state,
the Baptists, the Lutherans,
the Presbyterians, the Methodists,
the Mormons and the Unitarians.
My patience is as thin as her body
as she demands: Shampoo
my carpet before the baby comes.
I tell her I’m the manager,
not the maid, and to stop bothering
me with her nonsense.

The due date arrives and departs
but there is no baby and no check.
I watch her empty her vacuum
bag in the front yard before
calling and shrieking: The carpet
and yard are filthy and I’m not
paying any rent until you clean it up.
I know she’s run out of charities to con
and hand her an eviction notice.
She smirks. Legal Aid says you
can’t evict me for complaining.



Sharon Waller Knutson, a retired journalist, writes poetry from her Arizona desert home. Her work has appeared in The Orange Room Review, Literary Mama, Verse-Virtual, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Your Daily Poem and The Song Is…. She is the author of five chapbooks: Dancing with a Scorpion, My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields, Desert Directions, They Affectionately Call Her a Dinosaur and I Did It Anyway.