The Death of Silence

A car’s backfire rifles the ear with skeleton clatter, the crowd’s walla walla draws near, caterwaul evaporating in thin air. Silence is dead. (Long live silence.) Let’s observe a moment of it, call it what it’s not: splatter of rain that can’t soothe the window’s pane, dog barking up the wrong tree. Which tree, which air apparent is there to hear a word at its worth? Hammer that drums its water-logged warning against the side of the submarine: I’m buried to the hilt like the knife, after it’s thrown, continues to bow to the apple it’s split.