Revelations in the Key of K

I came awake in kindergarten,
under the letter K chalked neat
on a field-green placard leaned

on the blackboard's top edge. They'd caged me
in a metal desk--the dull word writ
to show K's sound. But K meant kick and kill

when a boy I'd kissed drew me
as a whiskered troll in art. On my sheet,
the puffy clouds I made to keep rain in

let torrents dagger loose. "Screw those
who color in the lines," my mom had preached,
words I shared that landed me on a short chair

facing the corner's empty Sheetrock page. Craning up,
I found my K high above.
You'll have to grow to here, it's silence said.

And in the surrounding alphabet, my whole life hid--
names of my beloveds, sacred vows I'd break.
With my pencil stub applied to wall,

I moved around the loops and vectors,
Z to A, learning how to mean, how
in the mean world to be.

But while I worked, the room around me began to smudge--like a charcoal sketch my mom
was rubbing with her thumb. Then

the instant went, the month, and every season
smeared, till with a wrenching arm tug
I was here, grown, but still bent

to set down words before the black eraser
swipes our moment into cloud, dispersing all
to zip. And when I blunder in the valley

of the shadow of blank about to break
in half, my being leans against my spinal K,
which props me up, broomstick straight,

a strong bone in the crypt of flesh I am.

posted by Kelly @ 10:01:00 AM