Welcome back for Zoeglossia’s Poem of the Week series curated this month by Noa/h Fields.

May 31, 2021

Audio

My Hearing Loss Interrogates the World

By Camisha L. Jones

View full text below.


My Hearing Loss Interrogates the World

By Camisha L. Jones


Why so loud? 
Why the mob of noise?
Why the clatter of simultaneous speech? 


Why your words such rapid fire?
Such hurdling train? 
You wanna run me over? 
Wanna leave me in your tracks? 


Do you know how to slow?
How to E-Nun-Ci-aTe?
How to repeat-repeat-repeat?
How to write it all down?
How to say it to my face?


Why so much “nevermind”?
Why you blow me off?
Why you walk away?
You think me helpless? Hopeless?
You comfortable with distance between us?


A close-up of Camisha Jones smiling. She has brown skin and her hair is styled in twists. She wears glasses, brightly colored earrings, and a necklace with a v-neck purple dress. (Photo by Brandon Woods)

A close-up of Camisha Jones smiling. She has brown skin and her hair is styled in twists. She wears glasses, brightly colored earrings, and a necklace with a v-neck purple dress. (Photo by Brandon Woods)

Camisha L. Jones is the author of Flare (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her poems can be found at The New York Times, Poets.org, Button Poetry, The Deaf Poets Society, Typo, The Quarry, and elsewhere. She was one of The Loft Literary Center's 2017 Spoken Word Immersion Fellows and competed at the 2013 National Poetry Slam. Camisha is Managing Director at Split This Rock, a national non-profit in DC that centers poetry that bears witness to injustice and provokes change. Find her on Facebook as Poet Camisha Jones and on Twitter and Instagram as 1Camisha.