Hearing Study

A mouse lies etherized
Upon a table in a lab.
 
Pink tufted flap pinned back,
Its ear is open to a ping
 
The cochlea is bound
To send along, asleep or not:
 
The engineers will trace
The domino-fall of stirrup bones
 
Up to the cortex flash,
Base wavelengths alchemized to sound.
 
I’ve got this tinnitus,
So in this silent lab I hear
 
The chosen tones ring out
Above a maddening susurrus–
 
I know they’ve stabilized
This table, pads on walls, nothing
 
Outside the experiment
Can reach this animal–and yet
 
All around this tiny stage
I hear how this could all go wrong,
 
And has: a Gitmo’s worth
Of hideous concerts, flood-lit rooms
 
For those about to rock
Instead of sleep, or pray, or eat.
 
If from outside this lab
This looks to you like board-approved
 
Research, but also like
The scenes of men with lab coats, hoods,
 
Our country’s uniforms
Engaged in violence upon
 
Someone naked and bound,
Then maybe tinnitus is not
 
A signal failure but
A warning: what is sweet upon
 
The porches of your ears
Is somewhere harmonized with that
 
You never would have wished
To hear, yet booms out in your name,
 
And mine. Even in here
That hidden beat keeps me awake.
 
 
©Josh Jacobs 2017