Ears

who used to wake me, school days, five minutes before my alarm

buzzed, saying, Well, it’s another beautiful day. How despicable I found

his enthusiasm as I dragged on my blacks and went to high school.

It was all so clear. I could hear so perfectly then, like now,

when the muffled forms that lurk in the dull dusk beyond

perception instead rush against my ears, throttling out of caves like bats.

This morning I had the wax sucked out of my ears with a tiny

vacuum and now New York is sound studded, my ears two disco

balls catching and reflecting even the most minute waves.

The wax itself glowed dark as Mars and would’ve overflowed a thimble.

Now everything is loud and consequential, the scream of hawks

over the East River, cab tires chirping against the curb.

Back at work, Eugene’s letter rubs between Leon’s and Gertrude’s,

whirring like the finest sandpaper. I can hear the fizz in my seltzer

surge up, oceanic. I had to call Stanley Katz and tell him

sir, your credit card was declined and he cleared his throat so raucously

I bent the phone slightly away from my head and poor Stanley,

of a certain age said CAN YOU SPEAK UP and I did, but it wasn’t enough.

I wanted to tell him my ENT’s name, Kacker; it is so satisfying

to say Kacker, to cut that hard K twice with the root of your tongue

against your palate. To realize, again, the joy in, as I’ve been accused

of more than once, the sound of my own voice. Even the clack

of the adding machine in my cubicle isn’t that bad, as Cathy

bangs away at it, softened, as it is, by the gentle thrum of the cables

in the elevator shaft and the relentless grind of the paper shredder,

chewing what is too sensitive to be kept.