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

Many more

My mother frowned.

When I read the Saturday Evening Post and

Collier’s magazines

Cereal boxes at the kitchen table

Uncle Wiggily

Little Lulu and the Classic Comics

Three newspapers a day

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.