Tom Healy

WHAT THE RIGHT HAND KNOWS*

I am not in stereo,
Deaf in one ear,

I am unable
with any accuracy

to pinpoint clamor
and quiet.

Argument reaches me
only on my left or

marching down
the center of the street

cleared
of other traffic.

I lose the background,
the sotto voce.

I lose scratch,
whisper, rain,

white noise, color,
if it's muted,

the good gossip
unless I turn to it.

Stories must
circle west

toward twilight.
I have no east.

I learned this
on an ordinary afternoon,

my parents fighting,
torching one another,

and the only place
to run for cover

was standing there,
covering my ears.

But my right hand slipped–
to nothing.

Nothing?
I rolled up the gates,

brought my fingers
flat again, lifted

one, then the other.
Both hands. Neither.

I don't know why I didn't
cry or

tell anyone
the sound wasn't working.

Suddenly strange,
hearing and not–

I kept the sugar taste
of that secrecy

well-hidden
until eventually

Armstrong
landed on the moon

and our family's first
color console

broadcast the Earth
reflected in the bubble

over the astronaut's face–
itself another

television
attached to the body

of the best father
of all possible worlds.

Did you know,
I said to my mother,

that the moon's dark side
has no sound?

* * *

A POSSUM ENTERING THE ARGUMENT

We're talking about
when we met
and you say

it was easier
to fall for me thinking
(I'll remember

this pause)
it was likely I'd be
dead by now.

Talking. Falling.
Thinking. Waiting…
Have I

undone
what you've tried to do?
You say no.

You say the surprise
of still being
is something

being built–
the machine of our living,
this saltwork of luck,

stylish, safe,
comfortable and
unintended.

Meanwhile, I haven't
had the opportunity
to tell you, but

our lovely little dog
has just killed
a possum.

Maybe it's unfair,
a possum entering
the argument here.

But I lay it down
before us:
because an ugly

dying possum
played dead
and didn't run,

its dubious cunning
was brought to an end
outside our door

by our brutal, beautiful
and very pleased
little dog.

So how do I say
that this is not
about death or sadness

or even whether
you really
first loved me

waiting, thinking
I'd be
dying young?

It's just that
standing there
a few minutes ago

holding a dead possum
by its repellant
bony tail,

I was struck by how
eerily please I was
to be a spectator

to teeth, spit,
agony and claw,
feeling full of purpose,

thinking how different
in our adversaries
we are from possums.

We try love–
the fist of words,
their opening hand.

And whether we play
dead or alive,
our pain, the slow

circulation of happiness,
our salt and work,
the stubborn questions

we endlessly
give names to
haunt us with choice.

* Both poems are from What the Right Hand Knows (2009) Four Ways Books.

Tom Healy is an American writer and poet and chairman of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, which oversees the Fulbright program worldwide. He was appointed to the Fulbright board by President Barack Obama in 2011. Healy teaches at New York University and is currently a visiting professor at the New School. His book, What the Right Hand Knows was a finalist for the 2009 L.A. Times Book Prize and the Lambda Literary Award. His poems and essays have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies.