Each of us.

Apart.

Working.

Clacking away at individual laptops.

Once again we’ll pretend your parents are just fine as they outyell

Each other in the other room.

Assume the noises are forks fallen to the floor and dishes disturbed.

We’ll maybe plug in the delicate buds of black lacquer earphones into our shiny machines

and listen to something loud

something aggro with drums.

But in that little pause --

that breathy gap between tracks,

We’ll hear the catastrophic years.

Hear

the tornado hit house rocked by the rattle of old resentments

a sad sad burst before the next song

begins.