Hunchback

Teased for silence inside of silences,
he never raised his hand.
He slumped when walking under moonlight.
He noticed details others lost.

Roots grew under sidewalks and lifted the concrete.
Ants appeared
then disappeared in the cracks between the spaces.
It happened–the smallest of things.

While others talked and pointed,
he saw the intricacies
of interactions of the tiny,
more than roots and insects,

but those of people,
who carried with them a gravity
inescapable,
the beginning of a crack

smaller than sound,
unheard at midnight,
growing by the hour,
something only a bell-ringer hears.

It was the narrow beating of their hearts,
a spider’s sorrow
crawling through their veins,
weaving a single tiny thread.

Aden Thomas grew up on the high plains of central Wyoming. His work has appeared in The Blue Mountain Review and The Inflectionist Review. More of his work can be found at: www.adenthomas.com.