Speak, Hear, Listen • • • Hope Jorgensen

Speake, Hear, Listen

Hope Jorgensen

Speak, speak, speak, My tongue is bursting with fruit. But when you speak, All I can hear is your red mouth moving. Spit spraying, tongue lashing, teeth gnashing, The movements that create syllables, form vowels, shape sentences. Years spent at a desk while a teacher looms ahead, Shaping out the cascade of words. Only for me to see sound issuing forth, music I can never grasp. You speak and I can’t comprehend.

I hear you, I can’t help but hear you. But the sound sinks me through the silent blues of the Pacific, Filling me, drowning me, an overwhelming wave. Whenever I’m in a room intermixed with sound, My ears are blinded by the traffic in New York City, The kitchen at dinnertime, flooded with scrapes and shouts. What should be warm and soft, instead cold and screeching. There are no threads for me to grasp, so I ask of you: Repeat, please.

I exhale on a silent breath, Shape the words the way I was taught; Tongue between my teeth for Ts, Pursing my lips and closing my mouth for Chs, Teeth grazing my lip for Fs. It looms over me: the fear, the noise, you, With your effortless words, sentences, masterpieces. So I must beg of you: Don’t leave me behind in the noise, And I promise I will speak, hear, and listen.