April 14, Poem 14 - learning to read (after Frank X Walker)
learning to read
(after Frank X Walker)
Because my mother never shooed me
from the room when she was talking
about politics, and never thought
I should leave even when the sweet
gossip about a friend was on tap.
Because my mother let me join
in when adults spoke and never
spoke to me in a babyish
condescending tone – Because
my mother drank good whiskey
and played cards and let me sit
there and laugh when she threw
the King down hard on the table
and talked shit to the men, I knew
that when she said, Roger,
this is for big people, that the grown
ups, were talking about fucking.
Because my mother’s perfect
diction (which allowed most things
audible, even in sotto voce) slid
then into a buttery whispered song;
because my mother’s voice got smoky,
low, and conspiratorial, I giggled
alone to myself, even when I couldn’t
make out what was being said.
And because I got then to spend
hours in the study alone
with books that were also for big people;
and read at length
about exactly what my mother
spoke in her smoke and whiskey
voice, I never tried to peek my head
out early, and back into the conversation.
I was learning the silky goodness
of the forbidden word; how a woman’s
barely visible slip spoke a rustled
language against a thigh, at what angle
the cocked cigarette meant a blade
was hidden, and at what angle, a wish.
My mother taught me through the genius
of banishment and access all at once,
that language was a joy to share
to withhold, a power to wield –
whether the language was her deep
resonant call for me to come in
from the streets at twilight, a measured
question about my studies, or alone
amongst books, the gradual knowing
that a woman’s legs, in the crossing
spoke gunshot, refusal, heat.
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