Ears, or no ears,
hearing, hard of hearing,
I am a leper to sound,
my tussle to hear—lumpy, ulcerous.
I am invariably kept quarantined by epigenetic mandate
capsuled to a bubble that’s about to pop.
I am numb to sound’s uncanny, Doppler effect,
the serpentine wavelengths wriggle and slither by unnoticed
like a ragdoll landing
stealthily on all fours.
I see naked fear, the anatomy
of a cephalopod twirling its tentacles
from toffee-nosed eyeballs, nosing for something unwonted.
Unwanted, uncool for exposing a wound: a system
crash: an evolutionary gaffe best kept under lid.
I’m Haiti: inborn deprivation sheeted in soundproof glass.
Joel Anthony Harris is a Trinidadian poet, artist and editor. His work is forthcoming in Bayou Magazine and have recently been published in Full House Literary, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Poetry London. TWITTER INSTA
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