Never heard
a Beethoven symphony
or any other symphony
and I’m all right.
Deafness is not an absence
or a wasting or festering.
I don’t walk in front of cabs
or fall off the curb.
Read my lips. Your world
doesn’t interest me—the clatter
of dishes the rarest tunings
of your finest violins.
A bunch of Russian expatriates
worrying over a patchwork
of arcane clefs and sharps
is just noise to me.
My world moves
in a stately rhythm
you can’t begin to understand—
lilting, slo-mo, no soundtrack.