(Poet’s note: This poem was inspired by a conversation at a literacy conference, where we were talking about struggling readers and how they sometimes can’t see below the surface of the letters on the page).

She reads the words,
not the text.
She zeroes in on the sounds,
not the meaning.
I’d like to shrink her down
so that she can dance inside the sentence
and tightrope among the twists and turns of the font
that holds the story up
when it often appears to her to be on the verge
of collapse.

Here is my Voicethread for this week’s group of poems, as I am away from home.

Peace (in the poems),

Kevin