How I learned the English language...

I.

“No, you are making words,”

my mother said.

“Not just spelling with letters.”

The tiles did not help me.

I had the edge of a spine-damaged

board to fill with

a large set of consonants.

“Learn to spell it

in your head and study what’s there.

Make it fit.”

II.

“And which one is bigger?”

Some hands went up.

My arms stayed still.

“Is it this one or the other one I’ve drawn?”

In her glasses, I see myself

choosing the wrong figure.

Quarter, third or half:

Which one has the most letters?

Another failure in math.

III.

“My friend wants to know,”

said the girl who held

strawberry-scented air,

“if you’ll go out with her.”

My homework was not done

and I could not see a face

in any corner of the floor.

The books gave me no advice in particular on what to do.

IV.

“That was amazing.

You can really write.”

Another reading and

my first vocal critic.

A smile cannot be unsmiled;

a look become unaimed.

Her boyfriend liked the poems, too.

V.

“Read me the bird story.”

A nephew’s demands were

better than anything I had heard that day.

I read it out, gave the characters

their own voices

(meows, caahs and whistles)

And I never did get tired of the book.

Not even when I could have been at work

with my own pen and the white space

of a too-clean page.

He often slept too soon,

and I just had to

close and wait for

his dreams to start.

*

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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