Unbuttoned Silence

Unbuttoned Silence

We come home carrying weather—

keys clinking like small apologies,

The door sighed closed behind us.

You set your voice on the table,

still folded from the day.

I hang my coat beside the coats

and listen to the clock practice honesty.

There are words with stiff collars,

starched and obedient.

Tonight I choose the other kind—

soft ones, loose at the throat,

willing to wrinkle.

Button by button, I open the quiet:

First, the worry that bit my neck,

then the laugh I saved for later,

then the ache that hid beneath it

pretending to be spine.

You don’t ask. You wait—

a lighthouse that doesn’t point,

just keeps being light.

In the mirror, steam has written

something I almost understand.

I drag a sleeve through it,

make room for a face I recognize.

When I turn, you are there

with the gentlest scissors,

cutting the thread of a sentence

I’ve been wearing it for years.

We don’t say much.

A kettle begins its private storm,

The floor holds our slow thunder,

and the night, relieved,

Finally lets out its breath.

By the time the tea cools,

silence sits with us—unfastened,

not a lock but a lap,

where even the heaviest thoughts

learn how to sleep.