Volume 6, 2006

I Hear You

Beverly Boyd

On the day suicide bombers blasted
the London Underground and a bus,
I was told to schedule a biopsy.
During that garbled week my ears rushed

with white noise, mild jangling, verbal
miscues. I heard a woman say she was
a throat cancer, then realized she’d said
folk dancer. In a shop a clerk paused

before citing a breast cancer cure,
but, no, smiling, she’d directed me to
the customer change cup. Just before
the cutting, my ears worsened. Sense eluded

me as my pulse detonated charges,
amplified echoes. Three days later
my hearing cleared. Ringing the doctor for
results, I knew it was no benignant rumor

when, quietly, he said

Return to Table of Contents, Volume 6, 2006.