When I read the
Reader’s Digest cover to cover
Each week
And all the books on our shelves at home
Peyton Place My Three Prisoners Van Loon’s Geography
My mother frowned.
When I read the Saturday Evening Post and
Collier’s magazines
Cereal boxes at the kitchen table
Uncle Wiggily
Little Lulu
Classic Comics
Three newspapers
My mother said
It’s a good thing she’s smart
Because she’s not pretty.
I had a library card.
In the third grade I was fitted for glasses
So I could see the blackboard
And the page.
I read my childhood away
Sorry not sorry.