{"id":1158,"date":"2022-11-16T19:00:57","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T00:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pensivejournal.com\/?p=1158"},"modified":"2022-11-15T21:32:58","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T02:32:58","slug":"to-my-daycare-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pensivejournal.com\/poetry\/to-my-daycare-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"To My Daycare Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"
not another word from you
\ncould make me feel
\napt for another chance<\/p>\n
at redemption, to prove myself worthy
\nof the paper before me;
\nhow do I position my hands for<\/p>\n
a holiday that thanks your privilege\u2014
\nwhen you asked me how
\nI wanted this fat stupid bird,<\/p>\n
& I said rainbow<\/em> five-year-old marisa marveled exploding chromatic clapping prismatic across the sky, fireworks tearing dear teacher, little did you know that the shy in which her imagination in due time to roar mountains into being, across the landscape\u2014too bad all she was asking of you, dear teacher, a baby’s scalp of yawning sinews moaning of the bird you love so much\u2014<\/p>\n yet the clipping of feathers<\/p>\n made no sound,<\/p>\n sawed the nucleus of her voice<\/p>\n &\u2014<\/p>\n silence:<\/p>\n the skeleton<\/p>\n from which<\/p>\n all<\/p>\n genocidal<\/p>\n tendencies<\/p>\n hang<\/p>\n in other words:<\/p>\n the reason why I have waited on meaning, your claim on to this day your impertinence was prophecy foothills of northern california, palms nodding dear teacher: one day you may discover that homage my mother nursed an infant at her breast gave grace now sick of saving face, today I live not another word from you could make me feel apt for another chance at redemption, to prove myself worthy of the paper before me; how do I position my hands for a holiday that thanks your privilege\u2014 when you asked me how I wanted this fat stupid bird, & I said rainbow & you said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":293,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"issue":[11],"coauthors":[221],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n& you said no<\/em><\/p>\n
\nat how you missed it
\nthe fabulous menagerie of hues<\/p>\n
\nthrough white-washed cornfields of sameness,
\nscribbled hand turkeys morphing into beastly brights\u2014<\/p>\n
\nchinese girl scrunched in shame before you
\naugured a world<\/p>\n
\nwould conceive of gorgeous lingual melodies
\ntransmogrifying creatures with power<\/p>\n
\ngranite colossi combustive quartz
\nblooming kaleidoscopes<\/p>\n
\nthey would blind your glaucomic orbs,
\nsquinting spheres which mistook other<\/em> for wrong<\/em><\/p>\n
\nwas to permit herself to unfurl
\nher wings damp with life’s tender newness,<\/p>\n
\npast bones in ecstatic friction, fanning
\ninto a rainbow the colored headdress<\/p>\n
\ntwo decades for my memories to divulge
\na reality other than your monopoly<\/p>\n
\narrangements of fake avian cartoons,
\nemblems of apparent interethnic harmony<\/p>\n
\nof my ascension, a world
\nthat would gorge itself on the crisped<\/p>\n
\nto the pilgrimage that reared a child whose forehead
\nsleeps smooth from the bowing down<\/p>\n
\nis a different beast than what you’ve always fed
\nbecause on this thanksgiving day twenty-two years ago<\/p>\n
\nto another god for a daughter whose fullest feathered self
\nwould sail treacherous into the maw of your white beginnings<\/p>\n
\ndear teacher, all I mean, is that<\/p>\n
\n& that turkey
\nis me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"