poem

[dinnertheory]

(.)

whose silence is this,
the pause, gap, caesura
between comment and capture -

before a legitimate sound
interrupts a pregnant moment, forever lost
amidst the mutually legible
fullness of chatter -

the comfort of a word
following another,
like a creature under its blanket,
an unnoticed, familiar lump
in our throats -

a cloth over our lapse,
it muffles; this undercurrent
of repetition, it recycles,
transmits,
defers,
the potent quiet -

that which you fear,
the second
forever
that I cease to hear.

In conversation analysis, (.) indicates a hearable, momentary silence within a sequence of talk.