The Hearing Aid

My mother–half-deaf, a small metal box pinned to her blouse, and beneath the gray locks the hidden earphone, the wire running across her heart to its home in her ear–can barely hear me anymore. I’m just someone’s voice lost years ago, trying now to make myself clear, deliberately now, so she will see how hard the words come. Bent to her breast, I speak to the heart, almost hopeless, where hardly anyone is ever heard.