by Kaydra Bui
upstairs the door
slams again and quiet
is puncture after the word
mother soaks our grimed sink
hands bare in boiling water she is
calloused to burning like this
calm
she says if I could choose again
this isn’t the life I would marry
in the kitchen I pass her apology
an empty plate she scrapes
plate after plate
empty
at school three days a week
Sarah and I miss gym class
alone in the hollow lock room
she sobs for bipolar disorder
orphaning her family’s love
and around her my arms
close like mute brackets
my mouth is crushed
in brackets
Hemingway says
there is no such word
as love
there is no word
for sorry
how does the physicist feel?
mapmaker of the cosmos
with language of mathematics
riddled where numbers aim
telescopes into black holes
cannot see touch pronounce
the universe’s silence
the problem of X
negative space
ballooning throats like frogs
wrung out wrong
wrung out hasty
croaks blundering
the stillness of feeling
the hush in heart
before dressing the day with noise
and undressing its music
in concert I remember
the deafened violinist
pretending play and stumbling
loud into the motionless
wide field of the orchestra
holding breath
this time,
say my name with pause,
a whole rest low on my back.
(love) this quiet is where we
can cry together you don’t
have to keep talking you don’t
need to explain