Meaningless

by Ray Succre

You do remember not being able to read,
and specifically, being unable to spell.

You have a few, vague memories from before you had learned to speak,
before you had a language.

They're mostly pictoral memories, cut scenes,and they are all soundless.

These are 1-sec silent films showing knee-height California:
A street.
A series of houses.
The back of your father's head.
A record.

A television during a commercial for some cartoon.
A grandmother with a bottle of amber liquid swearing as she stumbles over a chair.
Your mother showing you her purse in a mirror.

Then, you learned English, or at least, the modicum of it expected of someone aged birth thru 4.

You have many odd, strangled memories from this period, the clearest ones being the ones up-front:
An orange cat on a counter slashing your left eye.
The view from your high-chair.
You following up your mother going up a carpeted staircase, spelling aloud her maiden name with a series of M's and B's and random letters, and at the top, her (lie of) congratulations to you on spelling it correctly.

A rounded intersection with a garden in the center.
Looking down and squealing with horror while your Dad holds you up and over the railing of a chasmic scenic overlook, laughing his head off.
Some boy of about your same age, in a blue shirt, carrying a bundle of papers he is playing with, in a house near the woods.
Sitting on your Dad's lap and looking out through a windshield while he works the pedals, and while you steer.

Your new, blue Schwinn Stingray below a broken pinata from a Playa Del Sol, in a public park during your 4th birthday party.
Your training wheels being put on.
Going head-first over the handlebars into some broken glass.
Falling head-first off a kitchen counter into some broken glass.

Pitching head-first off your bike while trying to go up a curb.
A Godzilla toy that shot rockets out of its wrist.
A church next door.
A fig tree out back.

A jetty.
An ocean.
A tiny, living octopus in your father's hand.


[Ray belongs to Oregon, USA. He regularly writes poetry and has secured numerous publications. Recently, he has been blessed with a lovely son. Please visit his blog to know more: http://raysuccre.blogspot.com]