A Quiet Place

Can you hear it?

It’s quiet.

A boy walks behind his family out of a shop

Then the boy is gone.

deafeningly quiet.

You can hear a single hair fall on a sand floor

The breath of a mouse in a vacuum box

You can hear your neighbour’s panic

Exude from his pores

But most of all

Your own heart beats loudly in response

To all of those who can no longer keep up

With the noise

Rampant, mindless noise

Grabbing the last tin on the shelf

Finding gratitude in rolls of toilet paper

Selfishly stooping to robbing other’s survival

Rampant, mindless noise

Shouting nothing

When a father shouts out

“I want my children to live!”

What remains?

Just a man who turns silent.

All you think about, in these silent empty streets

Is the noise that once was.

Can you hear it?

It’s quiet.

A boy walks behind his family out of a shop

empty handed

Then the boy is gone.

Then the shop is gone.

Then the town is gone.

Deafeningly quiet.