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.