ASL I

At thirty, I am a child again learning
banana, apple, and orange,
clasping words and fumbling my meanings.
During introductions, half the class says this
elective is something they’re taking for
fun. Do people claim this about Spanish or
German? What calls us to a language? What
holds us there in its embrace?
I came here as a gift to my own future. I
joke about mishearings. I sign my name. Then: 
kissfist-LOVE 
LEARN SIGN. Who considers the body’s
metamorphosis a when rather than a could?
Now, I wonder when my decibels tumbled, when ears
opened arms toward their genetic
promises. Once a week we ask
questions with our eyebrows
raised and furrow our brows into grammar.
Synonymic language. Visual noise.
These lessons in concept and gesture.
Under the flag of audiograms, I am a
vessel the world rings in.
Who was I before a graph of 
x-axis and y yawned this landscape, 
yielded all I can and cannot hear, new
zones in the soundscape, all these possible words.