Two Poems

Quiet

The night was so quiet
I could hear my thoughts
Scrambling like old aunts
Looking for lost letters
With lost spectacles.

The night was so quiet
That silence became sound
A dark blanket of noise
Melting into an everlasting din,
The song of monsters under my bed.

The night was so quiet,
So perfectly still,
I wondered how loud,
How frightfully loud
A shout would be.

-----
At The Pediatrician’s

I’m working in the clinic,
Washed by a sea of voices,
The price of onions yesterday,
How his mother never flushes,
A child bright enough to be a doctor,
(God forbid.)
I watch as they wait,
The mothers of my children,
Measuring their lives in warm spoonfuls
Of sugar and laughter,
A commonwealth of years,
Fevers, forgotten lunches, carpools,
Melting into the song of my morning.