rocking at my shows, you told me you hid
your autistic inadvertant reaction to sound waves
in the music till you fell in love with that avant garde girl
with the odd bird poetry and casio keyboard
and the bright catchy tunes that made you shake.

I knew a deaf five year old once who was like you are about love:
tormented by the weight of sound he couldn’t hear but felt in skating rinks,
delighted by the hum in his hands he felt yelling into plastic parking cones,
running at the poolside, chasing reflections blissfully unaware
of the whistles blowing warning.