How to be Quiet if Need Be
Our porous loft made more porous now
that your Labor & Delivery night shift
turns my ear to my noise
when I spend days awake
and you are asleep. My feet tick
on the kitchen linoleum
and the sound slips over the half-walls
of our bedroom, and, in no time,
I have constructed unique accounting.
I know I look cartoonish—villainous, even—
hugging the walls with my steps
(standardized: fourteen, gaping)
from carpet’s edge
to ass on the toilet seat. I care enough
about quiet to notice
two touches of “+:30” eliminates
two of the microwave’s beeps from the regular
“1,” “0,” “0,” “Start.” This diligence
you have mused in me,
and you will never know it. Then again, which saint
is familiar with their own hagiography?
On this side of slumber, I have trained myself
in lightness, in slighting
myself in silence in this space we share.
I am the fruitfly banging
at the window, slurping juice unseen
from the banana’s splotchy skin—
unheard, unheard—and if you were wondering,
according to my manual,
the number of heel-toe footfalls needed
to cover the space between bed
and couch is approximately the number
of breaths you take
per minute in your deepest sleep.
Originally from the Louisiana Gulf Coast, Nicholas now lives and writes in Cincinnati as a PhD candidate at the University of Cincinnati. You can find his work at The Adroit Journal, The Cincinnati Review, DIAGRAM, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, and Pleiades among others.
