Poetry by Michelle Hasty
The line of us waits silently for the audiologist
Leaf green chairs face closed white doors
We seem ordered according to age and startle
When a mechanical voice shouts at us
From someone’s purse saying that she has reached
Her destination and the owner of the phone
Stops the sound, shakes her head, and says
She’s asked her son to quit with the technology
But he tells her she must join the 21st century
I’m here, she says, giggling, I just don’t know
What to do here. The line of us giggles with her.
Silence broken, a pair to my left discusses ailments.
It’s always something, one says.
I can’t hear the specifics—this is why I’m here–
But I catch a phrase from the other: I can’t really complain,
She says. The phrase catches me up short: I can complain.
I don’t want pink plastic devices attached to my ears
When I’m barely fifty. The possibility of a piercing
Shriek emanating, of my body beeping, I’m here!
Seems like a good reason to complain. Wasn’t I just
In middle school forever scrambling on the grass
Searching for lost contact lenses, or praying in ballet class
That the sound of music would cover my knees cracking?
A white door opens and a wobbly woman emerges,
Sinks into an empty chair at the end of our line.
Dizzy, she mutters. Getting crackers, the technician calls
Bustling past us, using her badge to exit the corridor.
The woman who can’t complain digs something
Out of her purse, holds a cupped hand to
The one who is dizzy, and asks, would you like a peppermint?
I am grateful to have heard this offering.
Michelle Hasty is a professor of education living in Nashville, Tennessee. Her academic writing has been published in literacy journals, such as Voices from the Middle and The Reading Teacher, and her short story, “Prone to Wander,” was published in the Dillydoun Daily Review. She is new to poetry writing.
