Caught

Half deaf is probably not the full truth,
for not ever hearing in one ear more likely means
only perceptible lack.

My good eyesight and sensitivity to smell
make up for some of it,
and there is always imagination. I think

that to hear twice of what I do would be
awful.
A fraction might be nice.

And maybe my eyesight and sense of smell
are the same as most everyone's.
It may well be that only my mind's ear is more

tuned, what I hear there something
from without and within; sights, too; a whole world
I have been living, alongside

the one where you and I are. I've never been sure, though.
Sometimes, it gets to be so loud
I can't hear; and, like many who appear

depressed, I withdraw.
Sometimes I miss being here.
Sometimes I miss being there.

Forrest Hamer is a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and a practicing psychologist in Oakland, CA. Call & Response (1995) is his first collection of poems.

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