Paul Hostovsky
I ask her why
she speaks orally to her cat
instead of signing to it in ASL,
since ASL is her primary
language and where her allegiance lies.
She replies in ASL
that it’s because the cat is hearing,
and after over half
a lifetime of speech therapy under
duress—constantly told
to use her voice,
people giving her odd looks
whenever she does—
here, finally, is no self-consciousness,
no judgment of her intelligibility
and intelligence, no difficulty
in making herself understood
to the sleek, warm, purring
ball of black fur luxuriating in her lap.
She strokes it with both hands,
coos baby baby baby baby
in that baby talk cat lovers love
to use with their cats,
and tells me she can feel the purring
beneath her hands
grow decibels louder in response.
About the author
Paul Hostovsky makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter and braille instructor. His poems and essays appear widely online and in print. He has won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Only Poems, The Writer’s Almanac, and the Best American Poetry blog.