In Our Time (formerly, Of Deafness)

Each man has a quiet that revolves
around him as he beats his head against the earth. But I am laughing
hard and furious. I pour a glass of pepper vodka
and toast the white wall. I say we were
never silent. We read each other’s lips and said
one word four times. And laughed four times
in loving repetition. We read each other’s lips to uncover
the poverty of laughter. And whoever listens to me: being
there, and not being, lost and found
and lost again: Thank you for the feather on my tongue,
thank you for our argument that ends,
thank you for my deafness, Lord, such fire
from a match you never lit.

Ilya Kaminsky