Heightened Silence

Listening in the dark for summer rains and the words found me.

Photo by PAN XIAOZHEN on Unsplash

The sound of a transit bus's wheels
clashing through rain puddles 
in the street is industrial 
wilderness. Like a penny 
bouncing on metal grating 
after falling from a sky scrapper. 
Thunder blows out Calm's candles 
like a wrecking ball hitting a drum dead
center just before a cascade of waterfall. 
An usher pulling double duty
as it takes a scythe to the throat
of our sensibilities, bisects its head 
from unsuspecting shoulders—
they never stand a chance once 
a storm has one foot through the roof—
and holds it up like the dead Medusa 
to a sky filling with quicksilver. 
A worthy sacrifice to conjure rain 
that could scare glass into breaking
on first impact. Lonely sounds 
have found a lonelier ear 
pinging for a muse. 
And together we'll make music. 
Water delicately skipping atop isolation boxes 
with wheels like a singular tin can 
being kicked down the road—
imparting the antiquation of nature 
on civilization's modernity. 
Fingers against keys 
with the occasional ponderous pause. 
We're the only two at this dance 
and won't remove our hooks 
from one another 
until the sun peels back every layer 
of sky to break us apart
and shocks the very cosmos.

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