{"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>
\n& you said no<\/em><\/p>\n

five-year-old marisa marveled
\nat how you missed it
\nthe fabulous menagerie of hues<\/p>\n

exploding chromatic clapping prismatic across the sky, fireworks tearing
\nthrough white-washed cornfields of sameness,
\nscribbled hand turkeys morphing into beastly brights\u2014<\/p>\n

dear teacher, little did you know that the shy
\nchinese girl scrunched in shame before you
\naugured a world<\/p>\n

in which her imagination in due time
\nwould conceive of gorgeous lingual melodies
\ntransmogrifying creatures with power<\/p>\n

to roar mountains into being,
\ngranite colossi combustive quartz
\nblooming kaleidoscopes<\/p>\n

across the landscape\u2014too bad
\nthey would blind your glaucomic orbs,
\nsquinting spheres which mistook other<\/em> for wrong<\/em><\/p>\n

all she was asking of you, dear teacher,
\nwas to permit herself to unfurl
\nher wings damp with life’s tender newness,<\/p>\n

a baby’s scalp of yawning sinews moaning
\npast bones in ecstatic friction, fanning
\ninto a rainbow the colored headdress<\/p>\n

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
\ntwo decades for my memories to divulge
\na reality other than your monopoly<\/p>\n

on meaning, your claim on
\narrangements of fake avian cartoons,
\nemblems of apparent interethnic harmony<\/p>\n

to this day your impertinence was prophecy
\nof my ascension, a world
\nthat would gorge itself on the crisped<\/p>\n

foothills of northern california, palms nodding
\nto the pilgrimage that reared a child whose forehead
\nsleeps smooth from the bowing down<\/p>\n

dear teacher: one day you may discover that homage
\nis a different beast than what you’ve always fed
\nbecause on this thanksgiving day twenty-two years ago<\/p>\n

my mother nursed an infant at her breast gave grace
\nto another god for a daughter whose fullest feathered self
\nwould sail treacherous into the maw of your white beginnings<\/p>\n

now sick of saving face,
\ndear teacher, all I mean, is that<\/p>\n

today I live
\n& that turkey
\nis me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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":"\nTo My Daycare Teacher | Pensive Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pensivejournal.com\/poetry\/to-my-daycare-teacher\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"To My Daycare Teacher | Pensive Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"not another word from you could make me feel apt for another chance at redemption, to prove myself worthy of the paper before me; 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