The Ineffable
My grandmother used to go to the movies a lot,
so she spent her childhood watching silent films.
They must have made an impact on her
because she never said much of anything.
People told me she would never talk,
but she always fed strangers looking for food.
Even her death was silent: one day she was here,
and the next day she never got out of bed.
Maybe she passed a quiet gene down to her girls
since her daughters were never ones for gabbing.
I finally decided to ask everyone who knew her
for their explanation of how silence spreads.
I planned my questions in such a way that
no one would know I was speaking to the others.
All of them gave me the usual responses,
all different but all the same in their blandness.
Then one day, my mother sat down with me and said,
Silence spreads like doubt, like lies, like water.
Silence is like you can't open your lips, and no one
will ever know but they already should know.
Silence makes more noise than sunshine on dry land,
and now you know why you will be the same.
About the Author: Jimmy Pappas won the Rattle Chapbook Contest with Falling off the Empire State Building, won the Rattle Readers Choice Award for “Bobby’s Story,” and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Rattle for “The Gray Man.” He recently received a Pushcart nomination from Naugatuck River Review. He now moderates a weekly themed Zoom event called “A Conversation with Jimmy and Friends” that encourages audience participation.
Image Credit: Walker Evans “Movie theatre on Saint Charles Street. Liberty Theater, New Orleans, Louisiana” (1935) Public domain image courtesy of The Library of Congress
As It Ought To Be 