Geometry of Silence
By Sam Aureli
It began with a tumble of chairs,
a child’s bones, still soft,
twisted—
a geometry lesson in pain.
I bit down hard,
swallowed the scream.
By nine, I knew
the precise length of his legs,
the distance from the floor
to the small of my back,
a surveyor mapping fear.
Curled in the corner,
I watched shadows slip under
the door, stealing
what remained.
Careful, a ghost
at the worn dinner table,
a whisper lost in the hallway drafts,
feet trained to levitate
above shattered eggshells.
My tongue learned
the acrobatics of silence,
stumbled through childhood,
dreading a misplaced word
might turn a spoon to a bludgeon.
Even now, I tread lightly,
shrink smaller than dust motes—
a ghost the sun can’t catch.
And prayer?
A punchline God forgot to tell,
leaning back,
a spectator at my wreckage.
Sam (he/him) is a design and construction professional from Italy living in Boston, MA. He turned to poetry later in his journey, seeking refuge from the chaos of daily life. Sam looks forward to the weekend, watching birds feed in the backyard, and finding inspiration in the quiet moments. His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Atlanta Review, Amethyst Review, Coverstory Books, Sontag Mag, Stanchion Magazine, Sidhe Press, Underscore Magazine, Prosetrics The Magazine, among other literary journals.
Artwork Source: “Walking Ghosts,” Cécile Gonneau
Artist Statement: Gonneau’s work presents several works from her ongoing series, Ghosts of the Forest. In this piece, we discover a lush, almost dreamlike landscape from which enigmatic white silhouettes emerge. Turning towards us, these silent presences seem to question our gaze, while stubbornly keeping their own.
Through this project, Cécile Gonneau offers both an ode to the wild beauty of the plant world and a meditation on memory, buried memories, and the ghosts that populate our past.
Cécile Gonneau is a French illustrator based in Belgium. In her black and white drawings, she unfolds an intense and mysterious universe, both sensitive and inhabited. Her preferred tool, the fineliner, allows her to render lush environments rich in detail with great naturalistic precision. Find more on her website.
The Turning Leaf Journal 