Carl Sandburg’s speaker looks back on a day spent refusing to talk. He had plenty he could have said, but he stayed silent because so much conversation around him felt empty—endless agreement, name-dropping, meaningless chatter. Silence arrives as both a covering and a cage: aprons muffle him, a wire holds his tongue, and he imagines carrying a padded cell or a private jail wherever he goes. There is wry humor in that image, but also loneliness. He is both the prisoner and the guard, locked away with his own thoughts while the world babbles on about departures and destinations. By the end, the speaker seems half proud, half tired—someone who chose isolation over empty noise. The mood is quiet, stubborn, and a little melancholy, like a person sitting alone in a crowd, unwilling to perform.
Aprons of Silence — Summary
Many things I might have said today. And I kept my mouth shut. So many times I was asked To come and say the same things Everybody was saying, no end To the yes-yes, yes-yes, me-too, me-too. The aprons of silence covered me. A wire and hatch held my tongue. I spit nails into an abyss and listened. I shut off the gabble of Jones, Johnson, Smith, All whose names take pages in the city directory. I fixed up a padded cell and lugged it around. I locked myself in and nobody knew it. Only the keeper and the kept in the hoosegow Knew it — on the streets, in the postoffice, On the cars, into the railroad station Where the caller was calling, "All a-board, All a-board for . . Blaa-blaa . . Blaa-blaa, Blaa-blaa . . and all points northwest . . all a-board." Here I took along my own hoosegow And did business with my own thoughts. Do you see ? It must be the aprons of silence.