August 16: Nephew, Deafness, New Poem

I found out last night that my new nephew, who was born last month, is deaf in his left ear.  Somehow, the doctors have performed some kind of hearing test and determined that he cannot hear anything in that ear.  His mother also can't hear out of her left ear, but it's simply coincidence that he is similarly challenged.

He is a beautiful little baby, still red and soft as flower petals.  He will never know that he is challenged in any way when it comes to hearing.  His mom didn't know she was deaf until she was in high school.  It's all about compensation.  The brain adjusts for the sense that is lacking.  He will be fine.  I know this.  And he is perfect.  All babies are.

Today, Saint Marty deidcates his poem to his nephew.

Anatomy of Sound

I press my lips to his helix, antihelix, scaphoid fossa.  Whisper into his cymba conchae, tell him he's perfect.  He gazes at me, as if I've just poured gold into his auditory canal, gilded his tympanic membrane and cavity.  He can't hear me.  I know.  The doctors have snapped their fingers, probed his one-month-old ossicles, found only silence.  Now, he sits in the curve of my arm, opens his mouth, closes it.  Remains mute.  His tongue, small as a minnow, swims with hunger, some unspoken need.  He can cry.  Scream.  Fill his lungs with air, rattle cochlea.  But tonight, he is all potential.  The possibility of syllable.  Word.  Line.  Poem.  It sits deep in his head.  Craving to be heard.

July 7: New Nephew, Birth Announcements, New Poem

I have a new nephew.  Last night, my wife's cousin gave birth to a bouncing baby poop generator.  I haven't seen him yet.  My wife and daughter went to the hospital for a visit this morning.  My daughter, who wants a baby sister in the worst way, loves holding infants.  My son, who is two, is a little too mobile for her now.  All he wants to do, basically, is run and destroy things belonging to my daughter.  A newborn is much more her speed right now.

I know I will have to take the obligatory trip to the hospital room, coo over my nephew, tell his parents how handsome he is.  I just checked the hospital's baby page.  My nephew's picture is not posted yet.  The birth announcements in this post are generic.  The children are of no relation to me.  But they're pretty damn cute.

I generally dislike birth announcements.  I hate those cheesy messages new parents put under the pictures.  "Mommy and Daddy's Little Princess" or "Our Little Angel Has Arrived" or "Our Little Gift from God."  I understand the sentiment behind them, but they're usually a little too saccharine for my taste.

Today's poem is my version of a birth announcement.  It is a reaction against the idea of perfection.  Babies are innocent.  Babies are pure.  Baby's, however, are not born into a perfect world.  But babies are proof that a mother and/or father believe in hope.  A newborn is declaration to the world that there is light and joy and happiness available.

Okay, enough of my warm fuzziness.  I think it's time for my poem.

Uncle Saint Marty wishes you a good evening.

Birth Announcement

Seven pounds.  Ten ounces.  Twenty inches.  Born:  July 6 at 6 p.m.  A nephew named after his late great grandfather, a man whose daughter died of ovarian cancer at the age of 48.  Whose son went down the basement stairs, shot himself in the face with a shotgun.  The baby's great grandmother has Alzheimer's, spends her days telling her roommate at the nursing home about her husband, who she's sure is out at camp, drinking Jack Daniels with his brother.  "Just wait 'til he shows up," she says, her voice soft as watermelon in her toothless mouth.  Delivered by C-section, the baby hadn't flipped in utero.  Breech.  "Already telling the world to kiss my ass," his father said.  Two days before, July 4, his mother came to the parade, sat in a lawn chair, let everyone rub her belly, complained how big her breasts were.  Baby and mother are doing well.  My wife, his aunt, suffers from bipolar.  A family illness.  She visited the hospital this afternoon.  Held him.  Touched his newborn cheek, soft, smooth as a daisy petal.  Loves me.  Loves me not.  "He's perfect," my wife told me on the phone.  "Perfect."