On Wearing a Loaner

On Wearing a Loaner Judy Kaber (bio) On Wearing a Loaner Two weeks ago I dropped my righthearing aid, stepped on it, smashed itto a million brittle pieces. I weara loaner now and hear a little differently. I am at my desk, but behind methe rain salts down my back, a clatterI can't trace. The stove spits at me,wind razor's my poor ears. Everything hurts in its strangenesslike an empty envelope found in the mail.What was the message I missed? Wordslike spoiled food on my tongue twist in sound and meaning, consonantsclanging against vowels. The moments raceto the next sentence, the next day,but I am left to ponder. What did it all mean anyway? Last week in the carmy grandson asked about death. Whydo people die anyway? My son sketchedan answer: They bear out, I guess. And is there an end to this bearing out,this bearing down, this bristly bear's backthat rubs against my own? I know I misunderstood,that he was talking about the way our cells spill apart like puddles spreading in rain,the way our energy wanes as days shorten,the way we cannot reach as high, lift as much, carryhope as easily as we did when we were young. End Page 139 Judy Kaber Judy Kaber, a former poet laureate of Belfast, Maine (2021-2023) has had poems published in journals such as Atlanta Review, december, and Spillway. Her contest credits include the Maine Postmark Poetry Contest in 2009, second place in the 2016 Muriel Craft Bailey Contest, and the Maine Poets Society Contest, 2021 and 2023. Her poems also appear in the following anthologies: Enough: Poems of Resistance and Protest, Wait: Poems from the Pandemic, and Balancing Act2: An Anthology of Poems by Fifty Maine Women. Her poem, "Sword Swallowing Lessons," was read by Major Jackson on T he Slowdown. Copyright © 2024 Pleiades and Pleiades Press