It’s winter and no one can speak. It’s been weeks. We
walk past each other in the grocery store, try to
converse over broccoli, lemons, a whole conversation
in only nods over the meat counter. We gather
information from the numbers on digital screens.
$32.59. We pay. We move on. We do not yell in the
traffic or the snow, but only grunt to gather attention
before stepping aside on the sidewalk for those
passing by in their thick nylon coats.
As the weeks move on, we begin to test each other.
Bar fights break out—multiple in a night. The sound
of traffic accidents ricochet across the snow and off
windows. Children stop going to school and flip
through the channels, hoping to hear something they
can remember how to say. Pots and pans clang
together. In a field, someone lights a string of
firecrackers. A car flies off a bridge. When they find
the body, a boy sings the first, indecipherable word:
something about light. Something we all understood,
but still couldn’t speak.