I wonder if radios ever blared the way TV screens do,
demanding attention,
not content with being background—
I wonder if there was an equivalent to what I feel now,
listening to the forever-drone of my sister’s idiot box,
praying even for the sound of the people across the way up late partying (again)
making their usual night racket—
and that’s the funny thing about night,
it’s a good time for quiet
but also a time for wondrous, breathing noise,
the kind that lets you feel
you’re still alive.
Not like the dead whine of the television,
which repeats the same laughs,
same drinks,
same nights over and over again
until they lose their meaning:
just empty voices,
talking heads.