— for Judith Butler
ear trumpet, crinkly hair, scowl
I’m reading about Beethoven
how he lives alone
when I stand still, when my mother
stands close & speaks slow & clear
I can hear, or I read her lips
Beethoven listens to his heart
his lungs, the whistle inside his nose
he cuts marks with a quill into stone
I see paper rustle, hear my dinner
chewed, outside is angry face
passion that fails to convey
Beethoven thinks tones, sees harmony
string to reed to air, doesn’t care
what anyone else hears
I am not an island, I am an island
I am searching for some way
to a threshold of livability
