Have you ever gone
someplace near the Bay
and tried sitting by a grumby,
whiskered,
whiskey-nosed,
lispy lipping leper
of an old, reddened,
sunbaked,
waveslapped,
windsogged,
thick-skinned fisherman
from those windjamming days
amid the odorous
decaying deadfish, seafresh air
listening to the tales
of crab grabbing, oyster hoist-raking days
with gazing agape,
with mesmeric awe –
thunderstruck by his filthy
weather-worn,
yellow-stemmed,
fierce-looking face-carved,
blackened white
meerscahum pipe
clenched between his tobacco-stained,
shellcracked,
rope-battened teeth –
shucking bluefins and
occasional oysters
with rapid sleight
of water-thickened,
short-stumped,
fat-fingered,
bare hands?
No, I wouldn’t have –
I wouldn’t be able to lipread him.
Curtis Robbins
The Deaf Way II Anthology (2002)