first reading

before phonics, i read books of creatures,
announced emu to my grandfather’s
startlement & then it was time for

real school. the gray stone building
behind the chain link fence, waves of
traffic in the intersection behind it

where rows, where walls, where
flag, clock, map, crucifix
announced some portent by fluorescent
light. but this, i could not read

or else the body read it first: tongue refusing
the sounds, mouth rejecting the syntax
of that space, coughing up whatever

obedience it was given. sick
every morning over asphalt in the parking lot,
then silence. head bowed, entered

& learned to conjugate what was called
education, a force
with unknown weathers

where beyond multiplication tables
another alphabet coalesced offshore
the widening gyre a storm

then sick again, then home. i went to kneel
near my grandmother’s gloved hands,
over roots threaded through soft beds where

she kept her beloved impatiens
and a running conversation with visiting
birds.

too late to be ancient, like whales, too late
for the soft womb of the far sea.
a creature learns the weather
it must live inside
learns to hear
them

& here
it was too late for lessons in first language but
not for the memory of how she opened

the mouth of her
o