ACOUSTICS TEST
By Camisha l. Jones
Say the word “pan-cake”
pan-cake
Say the word “birth-day”
birth-day
Say the word, “base-ball”
base-ball
This is a test
It’s me up at bat
An audiologist on the mound
Pitching words to me slow
So I can catch them
This is a test
Random as “it” may be
With no cause or cure, I am here
Because of what I can’t hear
Say the word, “play-ground”
As far as Ménière's Disease is concerned
I am all swings and sliding boards|
Stuck on the merry-go-round of vertigo, hearing loss, ear noise
Say the word “door-knob”
I am as deaf as one most days
Entering conversations only to be lost in them
My hearing never turns or unlocks completely
Say the word “dead-bolt”
Hearing
The faculty or sense by which sound is perceived
I perceive sound as code I can’t always break
Say the word “jail-house”
I got no way to escape these ringing ears
The clanging against the bars
Dividing me from comprehension, from community
I say the word “side-walk”
Watch the wet pavement of hearing loss
Swallowing the weight of my aspirations
Then I say the word “mail-man”
Wait for these tests to deliver
Something worth repeating
A life-boat
An air-plane
To save me from all this set-back
Say the word, “mouse-trap”
Say that the cheese I keep chasing is inclusion
Say my life is a sitcom
And I’m scared to be caught acting
With the right lines in the wrong scene
What will critics say about me then
Will they say the word “use-less”
Or “bro-ken” or “mis-fit”
And I know these aren’t nouns
But Ménière's has a way
Of stripping the noun out of “hu-man”
Reducing me to lesser adjectives
Reducing me to echo
Camisha L. Jones, "ACOUSTICS TEST" from Flare. Copyright © 2017 by Camisha L. Jones. Reprinted by permission of Finishing Line Press.
Source: Flare (Finishing Line Press, 2017)