Very Quiet

It's quiet here. The house is big and empty, but not unfriendly.
I've been left alone while the people I live with pursue other things.
But I'm not lonely.
Just alone.

Dinner is eaten, the remains on a plate in the sink.
The cat is sleeping peacefully.
She sleeps the same in daylight or nightlight.
Noise and confusion or deathly still.

Papers, and stacks of papers, lie around me.
They are well marked, well read and well studied.
They're being ignored now.
It's too quiet to study.

Even the clacking of keys is too loud
like I ought to be writing this out in my head.
But even my thoughts are like gongs
clanging, and bursting and dancing and twisting.

What will break this silence?
Kitty mewing for dinner?
The shrill scream of the phone, desperate for attention I am unwilling to give?
Maybe the door will open.

And just like that, with the light and the noise,
the aloneness will vanish.

'Quel