The Hearing Aid
My mother–half-deaf,
a small metal box
pinned to her blouse,
and beneath the gray locks
the hidden earphone,
the wire running across
her heart to its home
in her ear–can barely
hear me anymore. I’m
just someone’s voice
lost years ago, trying now
to make myself clear,
deliberately now,
so she will see how
hard the words come.
Bent to her breast, I speak
to the heart, almost hopeless,
where hardly anyone
is ever heard.
Copyright Credit: Richard Jones, "The Hearing Aid" from The Blessing: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2000 by Richard Jones. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.