The Silence After

Your mother's alarm clock stopped mid-beep.

Not at the hour. Not at a clean second.

It just stopped, and the second hand froze

in a different position than yesterday.

The silence is different now.

For years, that irregular rhythm—sometimes

two beeps, sometimes three, sometimes it would skip

and restart—filled the house like a small animal

you stop noticing because it's always there.

Now it isn't.

I stood in front of it for an hour today.

The second hand didn't move. The numbers

on the digital display faded, came back, faded again.

I wanted to shake it. I wanted to ask

what it was trying to teach me by stopping

in the middle of something.

The absence is louder than the sound ever was.