Tom Healy
WHAT THE RIGHT HAND KNOWS*
I am not in stereo,
Deaf in one ear,
I am unable
with any accuracy
to pinpoint clamor
and quiet.
Argument reaches me
only on my left or
marching down
the center of the street
cleared
of other traffic.
I lose the background,
the sotto voce.
I lose scratch,
whisper, rain,
white noise, color,
if it's muted,
the good gossip
unless I turn to it.
Stories must
circle west
toward twilight.
I have no east.
I learned this
on an ordinary afternoon,
my parents fighting,
torching one another,
and the only place
to run for cover
was standing there,
covering my ears.
But my right hand slipped–
to nothing.
Nothing?
I rolled up the gates,
brought my fingers
flat again, lifted
one, then the other.
Both hands. Neither.
I don't know why I didn't
cry or
tell anyone
the sound wasn't working.
Suddenly strange,
hearing and not–
I kept the sugar taste
of that secrecy
well-hidden
until eventually
Armstrong
landed on the moon
and our family's first
color console
broadcast the Earth
reflected in the bubble
over the astronaut's face–
itself another
television
attached to the body
of the best father
of all possible worlds.
Did you know,
I said to my mother,
that the moon's dark side
has no sound?
* * *
A POSSUM ENTERING THE ARGUMENT
We're talking about
when we met
and you say
it was easier
to fall for me thinking
(I'll remember
this pause)
it was likely I'd be
dead by now.
Talking. Falling.
Thinking. Waiting…
Have I
undone
what you've tried to do?
You say no.
You say the surprise
of still being
is something
being built–
the machine of our living,
this saltwork of luck,
stylish, safe,
comfortable and
unintended.
Meanwhile, I haven't
had the opportunity
to tell you, but
our lovely little dog
has just killed
a possum.
Maybe it's unfair,
a possum entering
the argument here.
But I lay it down
before us:
because an ugly
dying possum
played dead
and didn't run,
its dubious cunning
was brought to an end
outside our door
by our brutal, beautiful
and very pleased
little dog.
So how do I say
that this is not
about death or sadness
or even whether
you really
first loved me
waiting, thinking
I'd be
dying young?
It's just that
standing there
a few minutes ago
holding a dead possum
by its repellant
bony tail,
I was struck by how
eerily please I was
to be a spectator
to teeth, spit,
agony and claw,
feeling full of purpose,
thinking how different
in our adversaries
we are from possums.
We try love–
the fist of words,
their opening hand.
And whether we play
dead or alive,
our pain, the slow
circulation of happiness,
our salt and work,
the stubborn questions
we endlessly
give names to
haunt us with choice.
Tom Healy is an American writer and poet and chairman of
the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, which oversees the Fulbright program
worldwide. He was appointed to the Fulbright board by President Barack Obama
in 2011. Healy teaches at New York University and is currently a visiting
professor at the New School. His book, What the Right Hand Knows
was a finalist for the 2009 L.A. Times Book Prize and the Lambda Literary Award.
His poems and essays have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies.
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