Kim Roberts

HOW TO IMAGINE DEAFNESS

Listen to Audio Version

Darken your ears until the tunnels
with their intricate clockwork
are sheathed in pitchy calm.
Hum a little blue, to yourself,

but keep it secret. The small bones
will dip delicately, like willow leaves
that merely brush the water's surface,
in their repose. The small hairs

will lie down together like tentacles.
Listen: the lake stops its lapping
repetition of sibilance
(physicist, Sisyphus, sassafras)

and the great snail unfurls itself,
stretches its tongue longingly
toward the distant echo surge
that must be the heart.

* * *

HEARING LOSS

Listen to Audio Version

I.
Hammer, anvil, and stirrup
furnish the yellow vestibule,
echo every faint breeze,
rustle of paper, small words
long forgotten, spoken close and low.
Long after the electric pulses,
the reverberation slows:
this is song.
The vibration lingers, white bones
that shiver and buzz; the room
is not empty. Here is the drum,
the cilia, the perfect alignments.
Here the desire.
Here the memory of desire.

II.
Hear the memory of desire:
rustle of paper, small words
that shiver and buzz, the room
long forgotten, spoken close and low.
The vibration lingers in white bones—
hammer, anvil, and stirrup—move mouse to
furnished. The yellow vestibule
is not empty. Here, the drum,
the cilia. The perfect alignments
slow the reverberation:
long after the electric pulses
echoed every faint breeze,
here was desire.
This was song.

* "How to Imagine Deafness" first appeared in Outerbridge. "Hearing Loss" was first published in Unsplendid.

Kim Roberts's fourth book of poems, To the South Pole, written in the voice of Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott, will be published later in 2014 by Broadkill Press. She is editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and co-editor of the web exhibit DC Writers' Homes. This is Roberts's third appearance in Wordgathering. Her website: http://www.kimroberts.org.