It’s like the sound of fluorescent lights 
in an office building—if you’re lucky, 

you don’t notice them 
until someone flips the switch 

and quiet fills the rooms. 
It’s a background noise, like cicadas 

hissing but with the volume low. 
I don’t mind it, I don’t hear it 

when I’m asleep. Awake, it’s the sound 
of my brain working, an office building 

with all the lights on and I’m listening 
to the sound of light. 

Tamara Madison

is the author of the chapbooks The Belly Remembers (Pearl Editions) and Along the Fault Line (Picture Show Press, 2022), and three full-length volumes of poetry: Wild Domestic and Moraine (Pearl Editions, 2011 and 2017) and Morpheus Dips His Oar (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023). Her work has appeared in A Year of Being Here, Chiron Review, ONE ART, Shelia-Na-Gig, The Worcester Review, Writer’s Almanac, Your Daily Poem and many other publications.

Author’s website:
https://tamaramadisonpoetry.com