You’ve gone quiet again, and I can hear
the neighbor’s dog barking and the rattle
of her old car’s tailpipe when she starts
it up and pulls away. The bank of windows
in the bedroom we no longer share lets in
much more sound than light. The thick leaves
of the big maple that leans over our roof
shades the heat, but does nothing for the noise.
Still your silence has me eavesdropping,
ear to the floorboards, for the slightest sound,
the whisper of your feet in thick socks,
the knock of your knuckle on the doorjamb,
the click of my doorknob turned. I listen
for some sign you are still here, maybe just
the clearing of your throat, maybe just
the whisper of the wind bending the blades
of grass you can no longer cut. Someone shouts
to her child, someone else starts his mower,
but now I hear the sluicing swirl of my blood,
the bulging beat of my heart behind my eyes.
Your has silence carved a space I begin to fill with
new sound. My desire a trumpet, my sadness a song.
Rough Drafts Only 