CLERC SCAR 32.6
6 April 2010

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ENGLISH TEACHER
Paul Hostovsky
Lines: 35
[Poem]

He had the most beautiful fingerspelling.
So elegant, eloquent, clean.
He had only to spell his name and all the deaf girls

turned into titters and sighs.
Surrounding him in the hallway, they’d escort him to class–
a bobby-socked amoeba oohing and aahing,
blushing and shifting shape around the nucleus

of his right hand.
A somewhat feminine yet not unmasculine hand,
it was a reader’s hand
that lived among words because it loved words,

and probably learned to love words from other hands
that loved words before it,
that wrote them down or just spelled them out in the air
lovingly.

And though none of the deaf girls loved words quite the way he did,
they loved his way, and they loved his hands,
and they loved.

And so years later when the girls were grown and the hand
was still–
though some of the girls had found love and some had not,
though some had learned to love words and some had not–

they all got together again to remember
how they all loved once,
so long ago now that it was hard to recall
his face anymore, or even his words exactly.

But his vowels, his consonants–
Who could forget those long intelligent fingers
lighting the little fires that caught in their chests
and throats, and blazed up into their breathing until they could find

no words themselves, could give him only their eyes,
their eyes reflecting his words dancing away
like smoke through the singing air.

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Paul Hostovsky is an ASL interpreter and the author of two collections of poems, BENDING THE NOTES and DEAR TRUTH, both available at http://www.clercscar.com/?page_id=12

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CLERC SCAR 25.9
11 February 2010

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DEAR AL
Paul Hostovsky
Lines: 45
[Poem]

Dear Al,

Here’s the church and here’s the steeple,
and the deaf students have barricaded the doors,
hot-wired the school buses, moved them
in front of the gates, and let the air out of the tires.
They’ve shut the campus down and the police
can’t do anything about it because they don’t
know sign language. And neither does the president
of the college. And neither does the chairman of the board
of trustees, and neither do the trustees themselves.
The trustees can’t be trusted with this college, this
church, this school, this blessed sacrament.
Here’s the hospital and here’s
the urology unit. Open the door and see all the doctors
with their deft fingers and expensive educations.
Here is one performing a vasectomy
on a deaf patient who has elected to have it
because he doesn’t want any children.
And the surgeon has a slight accent, maybe
German. And the sign language interpreter
has a professional code of ethics,
and is signing what the surgeon is saying
but not what the interpreter is thinking
about German-speaking surgeons and vasectomies,
about Aryans and eugenicists and the forced
sterilizations of deaf people all over Europe
only 40 years ago, not to mention
cochlear implants being performed today
in this very hospital on deaf children who haven’t
elected to have them; not to mention
you, Al, making your speeches and lobbying Congress
to pass a law preventing deaf people
from marrying other deaf people. What were you thinking?
Here’s the church and here’s
the steeple. The deaf students are burning
their oppressors in effigy. They’re saying: LOOK!
To anyone with eyes to see, they’re saying: LOOK!
And the interpreter’s fingers are flying,
and the surgeon’s fingers are snipping, and the nurse is
adjusting the light above the deaf patient
lying on the table with his johnny hiked up, his little
deaf penis the center of attention. And the interpreter
who has been trying all this time not to look at it,
looks at it. Takes a good long look.

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Paul Hostovsky is an ASL interpreter and the author of two books of poetry, BENDING THE NOTES and DEAR TRUTH, both from Main Street Rag Press and available at the Clerc Scar bookstore or at his Web site, http://www.paulhostovsky.com

=====
We welcome letters to the editor in response to this piece. Send to editor@clercscar.com. We reserve the right to edit letters for space and clarity or not to publish a letter.

We are always open to submissions. Submit your writing, artwork, or video to editor@clercscar.com.

To subscribe, email subscribe@clercscar.com with the message “Subscribe daily” or “Subscribe weekly.”

To unsubscribe, email subscribe@clercscar.com with the message “Unsubscribe me.”

Find us on Twitter and Facebook!

Visit our archives or bookstore at http://www.clercscar.com.

Copyright 2010 by Clerc Scar. All rights reserved.