Love at First Sound
Thirteen yet a school house novice.
The hinterland’s dust
barely off her feet,
Nah dragged the house-girl to a
high-ceilinged dwelling
with wire-meshed windows
and shoved her through the door,
into the room where younger children
recited the alphabet.
She loved the rhythm
of their singing
and the music of letters
spun off tongues,
that whirled in her ears.
Uncle Nah needn’t
drag her to school after that.
Soon she was spooning
the alphabet out of her
Campbell-tin-soup
onto her floor mat where
she kneeled to make words.
Letters danced around in her head.
Sleepless, she freed them.
First whispering, then shouting
and craving the sounds,
she strung sentences together.
She set them gently down on paper,
and the voice she gave to stories
became the firework of her people.
© Althea Romeo-Mark 12.11.2010
Published in Off the Coast, Maine's International Literary Journal, Winter 2011 (http://www.off-the-coast.com)
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