Maura Gage Cavell

A Certain Silence

She listened to his brakes screech
as he pulled into the driveway,
the cold air returning
through tree branches,
the blue sky darkening.
Mondays burn past,
Tuesdays come and go;
she wonders what is left between
them, for them, on all the other days.

One woman sees him as leaving,
Another sees him as a beginning,
and other women see their men
drifting on the horizon of moving
away on a sea that takes
them far away and into the arms
of other women who don't even know
what the man really is
and that they, too, will be met
with a certain silence no matter
how loudly they scream.

 

Maura Gage Cavell is Professor of English and Director of the Honors Program at Louisiana State University Eunice. She resides in Crowley with her family. She has recently published poetry in California Quarterly, Louisiana Literature, Clark Street Review, and The Louisiana Review.