April 2022
Kelly Sargent
usernameks@aol.com / www.kellysargent.com
Bio Note: Born hard of hearing and adopted in Luxembourg, I grew up with a deaf twin sister in Europe and the United States, and wrote for a national newspaper for the Deaf. My poetry chapbook about my experiences, entitled Seeing Voices: Poetry in Motion, is forthcoming (Kelsay Books, 2022). My poems and artwork last year appeared in more than two dozen literary publications. I also review for a literary magazine dedicated to making visible the artistic expressions of sexual violence survivors.

Her Voice

I was born an identical twin in Luxembourg.
My miniature mirror followed me after I stretched our pungent means out
into a land perched on cliffs.
It’s another girl, the makeshift midwife from next door must have announced 
in French to a perspiring woman I would never call
Mom.

My three-pound twin arrived unexpectedly
with a cry that she would never hear
— she was deaf. 

It wouldn’t matter, though, that French words declared her 
a second 
and an adoption agency asked nine months later if a couple wanted to 
trade her in.
One day, she would hear
with the nut-brown eyes, then lidded shut,
and speak a language that was already foreign to them;

foreign because they had four ears that weren’t broken,
or because

they had four ears 
that were broken. 

I have one broken and one not,

but I didn’t know which one was which
until 23 minutes ago
when I considered it. 

The ten tiny fingers she must have clenched 
that would one day be 
her voice
differed from the vibrations in her throat that assuredly joined in chorus with mine 
to fill that stuffy, damp and narrow room.

I wonder if the sweaty stranger or her neighbor counted them.
Originally published in Cerasus Magazine.

Fruits of Labor

I wrap your tiny hand around my throat,
size identical to your own,
for you to feel the sounds vibrating within:

blue-ber-ry
ba-nan-a
straw-ber-ry

You wrap your tiny hand around your throat,
size identical to my own,
for you to mimic the vibrations 
that form the consonants and the vowels that you cannot hear. 

Your index finger with the Snoopy band-aid searches for the “r-r-r”…

blue-ber-ry?

I shake my head. Look at my lips, I sign.

blue-ber-ry 

I watch the cherry Chapstick crack on your lips 
as “blueberry” makes them pucker. 

Next,
ba-nan-a?

Umm, say it slower, I say. See my tongue?

You mimic and mash “n-n-n” against the roof of your mouth
with a tentative nod and raised, hopeful eyebrows. 

Then,
straw-ber-ry?

Hand on my hip. Hmm, remember Dr. Lane with her popsicle stick? Ahhh …

But you open too wide.

We cover our mouths momentarily 
to stifle girlish giggles —
We are, after all, hard at work. 

blue-ber-ry
ba-nan-a
straw-ber-ry

and repeat:

blue-ber-ry
ba-nan-a
straw-ber-ry

and adjust:
 
blue-ber-ry
ba-nan-a
straw-ber-ry

and tweak:

blue-ber-ry
ba-nan-a
straw-ber-ry

again 
and again 
and again 

and once more
 
until —

fruit never tasted
so sweet
in our mouths.
Originally published in Cerasus Magazine.
©2022 Kelly Sargent
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