Language Lessons
The carpet in the kindergarten room
was alphabet blocks; all of us fidgeting
on bright, primary letters. On the shelf
sat that week's inflatable sound. The th
was shaped like a tooth. We sang
about brushing up and down, practiced
exhaling while touching our tongues
to our teeth. Next week, a puffy U
like an upside-down umbrella; the rest
of the alphabet deflated. Some days,
we saw parents through the windows
to the hallway sky. Look, a fat lady,
a boy beside me giggled. Until then
I'd only known my mother as beautiful.
was alphabet blocks; all of us fidgeting
on bright, primary letters. On the shelf
sat that week's inflatable sound. The th
was shaped like a tooth. We sang
about brushing up and down, practiced
exhaling while touching our tongues
to our teeth. Next week, a puffy U
like an upside-down umbrella; the rest
of the alphabet deflated. Some days,
we saw parents through the windows
to the hallway sky. Look, a fat lady,
a boy beside me giggled. Until then
I'd only known my mother as beautiful.
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Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by Alexandra Teague, whose first book, Mortal Geography, winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Prize, is forthcoming in 2010 from Persea Books. Reprinted from Third Coast, Fall 2008, by permission of Alexandra Teague and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.