It does not know where the ear hangs.
It is wood. It sits. It is known.

My listening shell hole
Plucks the table.
Grows to it.

My sound tank suctions the
Plane of the table.

They argue.

“I can hear you,” the ear says.
“You can use me. I can be solid,” the table says.

They get nowhere.

“I listen to living things,” the ear says.
“I could live. I was living,” the table says.

But the table is not alive.
It is dead solid.

The ear says, “I was made to consume the powdery substance of a voice.”
The table says, “I was made to be a table in your uncomfortable void of tablelessness.”

Suddenly the ear is reminded of the mighty voices
Of his ancestors.
The notes they hummed when he was birthed.
Their giant Redwood presence.

The ear says, “You were rough bark. Now you are a smooth table. I hear posers rot in hell.”
The table says, “I am no ear. I have no wax in me. I am a solid, living voice.”

“Being an ear presence on Mary’s head is my profession. But how lucky that she allows me to choose when I take my vacations from hearing. For this reason, I think I will begin now. I choose not to hear,” the ear says deafly.

“I cannot choose. I am a table. I am always solid. I am always a table. I wish to sound my living voice.”

So the table sang. A table song. In a very tablely voice.

But I stop here.
I do not here the table because my listening shell hole is on vacation.

And the table does not hear.
It is a table. It has no hearing orifice.
It is a table. A solid table.

A solid, singing table.