Learning to Read
By four I knew what my mother must have known
immediately. I was more trouble
than I was worth. She’d lie down for a nap and there I’d be
buzzing around her, thinking
that I had a right to push my nose into everything.
That’s how I learned: bumping into things
like a fly who keeps asking the same question
of glass. At seven I hovered over words
on cereal boxes, candy wrappers,
my grandmother’s romance novels. My brother’s
adventure books. They all tasted
like delicacies, like the crust
of fat off the roast, dollop
of butter, heel of bread, smear of gooseberry jam,
sweet, brown rot
of a banana, still-soft gum with a little peppermint
hidden in it. I was that hungry.
Leftovers, scraps, carrion. As I turned the pages,
I picked my nose, studied scabs,
the blue grit I pried from under my nails,
the bit of wax on my fingertip,
reading the smudged ink
of my body, its own dark alphabet.
I didn’t care what I feasted on
as long as I feasted.
by Christopher Bursk
from The First Inhabitants of Arcadia
University of Arkansas Press, 2006