Marcia L. Hurlow
Tinnitus

Hammers, lawnmowers, weed wackers
suburbia damaged Green Man’s ears.
To stop the constant fuzzy trill,
his doctor advised a natural cure
for the white noise haunting his canals:
ivy and beech fern. (You’ve seen the pictures.
His ears overflow like sprouting pots.)

Then he missed the red maple leaves
applauding August wind, the rush
of insects before heat hushes them.
Remember his sad eyes? He yearned for
an afternoon by a hillside stream
to listen to the soft hiss of water
as it spills to a still, shaded lake.

Marcia L. Hurlow has one full-length collection of poetry, Anomie (Edges Prize, WordTech) and five chapbooks. Her individual poems have been published by Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Chicago Review, Poetry East, Nimrod, Malahat Review, Poetry Wales, Poetry South, Louisville Review, Emrys, Zone 3 and River Styx, among others. Marcia is a two-time recipient of the Al Smith Fellowship in Poetry. She is co-editor of Kansas City Voices. Marcia and her husband, Greg Stump, live in Olathe, Kansas.