A Silence

Suddenly everything went silent.
No birds, no people talking, no rustle of trees.
Traffic had no sound.
I remember going to CVS
and paying for cigarettes with a check.
The clerk never uttered a word.
I was biding my time before packing my bags
and waiting for my father to pick me up.

But everything was in slow motion
like a kabuki dance.
Time stopped like a clock with no hands.
And on TV the president was giving
a speech in sign language.
I went to the bank where I withdrew cash
and no one noticed my hands shaking.
But everything was quiet so I didn’t care.

And I was alone on the street with many people
who were like extras in a film.
Was this what it was like to be deaf?
Or had the world stopped answering my questions?
I packed my bags and my father took me to the hospital
where they checked me in and went through my things for razor blades.

Marjorie Sadin has poems in The Barefoot Review, Microw, Emerge, The Little Magazine, Jewish Women’s Literary Journal, Tower Journal, among many others, and five books of poetry in print. Her new Vision of Lucha book portrays struggle and survival, love, death, and family. It was published by Goldfish Press. Recently she published a chapbook, Struck by Love, also by Goldfish Press. Marjorie lives and reads her poetry in the Washington DC area.