When Silence Speaks

How can they say silence has no sound? Make it go away. Floor-felled, right ear pressed to the phone, cowering in a quarry of quiet between coffee table and couch. Yes, I tell her, yes I can hear. Fingers in ears, fingers laced across face in a filigree fretwork of fear. Overwhelm washes over in waves, water whooshing into the ears of shells. Shells like ears or ears like shells... Muggy heat-thrum of July and August sounds exploding like pollen grains between ear and brain. And what should be silence but isn't hangs like a pall, enwraps like a caul, hissing wires snake from the wall... What do the noises sound like? Snakes writhing and rearing to strike. We could try you on Quetiapine, she says. Silence has a sound. I know it speaks. I know the scream of silent weeks.