My kindergarten teacher guides me out of our classroom
down the hall to another door
where more teachers wait. This is the child,
my teacher says. I stand looking up inside
a cluster of tall women in many-buttoned dark dresses.
My teacher tells me to spell a word, something to impress
I suppose. I spell two or three words from pictures
I see in my mind. Every word I know has a picture
that appears — black letters on a white ground —
when someone says the word aloud.
The women stare at each other & shake their heads
at my teacher & at me, the four-year-old redhead
standing below & between them. I know it’s something more
than good favor, they find me odd, they’re keeping score.
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