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There is a certain severity
in the sounds of silence
In vaulted ceiling kitchens steamy
Between floundering words bouncing around
Echoing even in thin air flaring flailing falling flat on deaf ears’ ringing
As the cloth rooster calendar from 1966
Hangs on in pecking pose persistently still on the wall clinging to the past

Speaking volumes with broken tongues and bruised delicate egos
A language of vulnerable protection sacrificing
Like a sheep avoiding shearling fleeced
At an early age
She learned silence was indeed a golden lamb

Hiding behind mama’s kitchen apron strings
Holding her tongue until it blistered like oven hot snicker doodles waiting to blister an eager thumbprint lingering and wafting thick with heavy perfume of burnt cinnamon sugar and sticky wicket conjuring memories settling deeply into the tiny flower papered walls
and crevices caught in knotty pine wainscotting eagerly waiting for release

Underneath the kitchen table, the one with a cigarette burn no one speaks of, little pitchers with big ears hide like ghosts lingering between question and answer busy body sessions

Suddenly the adults hush as the rubber jax ball is dropped bubbly thudding
the rug ready to be pulled at any moment once again topples the milk into tears
with a splat, splat, splat

Then tumbling in a cool stream on wormy pine plank floor
She feared her hiding place soon divulged would merit corner punishment for eavesdropping adults

Wishing to find words to wake up the nightmares out of her mind, running through the backyard jungles shaking off stinging sumac and thorny roses from the choking grip on worry beads and
medicated methods devised on sangria Sundays they said would work for her one day
If she only sat up straight listened behaved quietly

Something begins shifting now between the unspoken
Exchanging glances and the knowing clicks now fading into memory
Serving
Slowly
Steadily
Realizing when the rug is pulled out from beneath her the power to turn it into a spinning ballroom floor is within her being
Stirring, softly falling into defiant grace

Meekly stepping up firstly,
speaking up seconding her instincts to rise from ash and dysfunction
enough is enough,
With just enough
Silence between the notes
She finds herself singing
To the beat of her own drum banging slowly gaining speed