Night Silence

Night Silence

            


You're tired, so tired

it's as if a million speckled butterflies

with a million years of ancestors

have landed on your shoulders,

ears, feet, fingers, heart

to pin you securely to the ground.

You try to get up

and their wings flicker

tiny lights

while the grass grows

in shades of blue and orange

the wind swirls around

a net

soaking you with feelings

you thought you'd forgotten;

and the night

seems like all the roads

the signs you've seen

have worn your edges

still the same

the coat of gloss has faded

nothing new

words choke, stumble on one another

the decoder's jammed

you are just an animal

listening to sounds

feeding off leaves

seeking to survive

just one more day

of silence.


  

Mitchell Waldman

Mitchell Waldman's fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Fictive Dream, The Waterhouse Review, Crack the Spine, The Houston Literary Review, The Faircloth Review, Epiphany, Wilderness House Literary Magazine, The Battered Suitcase, and many other magazines and anthologies. He is also the author of the novel, A Face in the Moon, and the story collection, Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart (Wind Publications), and serves as Fiction Editor for Blue Lake Review. (For more info, see his website at http://mitchwaldman.homestead.com).