Audience

Poetry

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Closed-curtain cheers from all
of them unseen who see:
like a bathtub drain plug
echo ringing like a phantom phone call

ballroom dancing laughter through the ear — 
a voided din that blares through the den
after one switches Off the vacuum cleaner —

or a commodious hush succeeding
the thwack of a newly laid Welcome mat,
the leaves funneling as they settle.

We cleanse our Sunday
with the scrub-brush bristles
of dying shafts of light
peeping through the blinds
until the list is done:

then, we again — alone
vowing silence. Dear,
better to keep the bed
unmade, as though the sheets’
rumples, crests, wrinkles, cliffs
were created to a chorus at dawn.