He’s saying something
Vague about fish and chips
It feels like rain
But it probably won’t
There’s a suggestion made
About where we should holiday
The suggestion is batted away
But with nuance
With barely a raised eyebrow
A newspaper is read
A couch is sat on
A throat is cleared
Then nothing happens
For three or four minutes
Have you ever really taken the time
To notice how long
Three or four minutes is?
It is…
An unbearable amount of time
When filled with nothing
But silence
And truly
It is an art
A true art
To fill something
With silence
And, like any art,
While many may practice it
So few are adept
The lights are dim
The furniture is white
Or old
Tattered
Indicative of Britain
Post-war
Brandy
Sherry
Gin
All consumed
Or ready to be consumed
We stare out windows
We stare ahead
We stare at each other
Two minutes
Four
Six
Depending on the director
And what college
He graduated from
While all this transpires
Some of us
Find love
In between the creaky floorboards
And the peeling wallpaper
The chipped mugs
The tin can suppers
The ripped aprons
The seaside nobody can enjoy
Because it’s filled
With nefarious seagulls
And suggested adultery
Somehow
Even in this desolation
We find an affection for each other
The way sometimes
Even with all the ways there are
To entertain yourself
Nothing quite beats
A bad movie
On a Sunday afternoon
Here, in the pauses
And the breaks
And the stormy silences
We find a soft voice
A careful word
A well-placed indication
That even beneath
Our scattered British accents
There is a lilt
An affection
I say my line
You say yours
We wait
We wait a minute
We wait two minutes
The sound of a clock ticking
That’s been created from nothing
Since there is no clock onstage
Let alone one that ticks
I think about smiling
But I don’t smile
You raise an eyebrow
You mention something
About a murdered woman
Or the man downstairs
There’s a grumble to your tone
But beyond that
There’s just something to say
When you don’t know what to say
And whatever comes after it
Or doesn’t
Either because it doesn’t need to
Or because there’s nothing
All that important
To say
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