Tinnitus

Funny, this noise without sounds,
these waves without ocean.

Often I hear a jazzy swoon,
which hangs deep in the middle like a heavy hammock;
otherwise, it is a dying engine,
heavy and sudden and startling for a split second
only to judder to a stop.
Sometimes there is an insistent prodding,
a scratchy glissando in a higher register
that distracts more than the others,
and some nights it is all at once.

I can get tired, with the whoosh and the hum
in the same way I doze by repetitive speech.
How frustrating to deafen oneself
simply by the beating of one's heart
which is singing, 'I'm alive, I'm alive!" -
joyous news, to be sure, but poor
in the method of delivery.