catapult magazine

Our mother, who can no longer hear

by Jill Reid

Our mother, who can no longer hear
laughter, is happy if her eyes can swim
through a mouthful of words
and fish out three keepers. 
She, who spent a lifetime
teaching second graders to read
is learning how to read
the nuances of lips.  Her silence is a cymbal
clanging our fumbled attempts to help
her see our stories.  She sits at home, the TV turned
off, her piano lidded shut, the hollow of her ears
plugged with plastic, and she waits for us to carry
the world through a door that has forgotten
the sound of knocking.  But we forget so much
of what we meant to keep, lug so little home in the pocket
of our tongue.  We end up unpacking fragments,
shrill shards of sentences, plot summaries that feel
like cheating.  Still, it is the sound she can
actually detect that worries her the most — is that a bell, a crash, a siren
announcing the coming of some other loss she will grieve
in the darkness of silence, without even the consolation
of hearing how well a sob can speak of broken things.