A THICK TONGUE

mmmmMagic
Kkkkiss
xxxxxray
ththth
A childhood stutter and stammer slurred my speech.
1950s
Falmouth Foresides Maine.
My mouth resisted the passage of ths and ghs and Ss. And ottthers.
My tongue mangled consonants vowels in my mouth.
Family and friends failed to decipher my words
Teachers thought I was stupid.
Schoolmates thought the same.
I was beaten by three of them.
I came to understand everyone is stupid
And I could never changed that.

My father took me to doctors in Maine
"His tongue is too big for his mouth. Slicing his palate with razors will force his tongue to work more."
My father rejected their cure.
"My son will live with a lisp."
Thereafter I spoke my own language
My mangled words belong to me alone.
And only to me.

1960
Our family moved from Falmouth Foresides
To the South Shore Of Boston
Catholic school.
I said nothing Hid my speech
The nuns rejected of my vow of silence.
Some severe nuns believed I spoke like Satan
My wrist slapped countlessly
For sloppy ths with a ruler.
Slaps for ghs too
Slap slap slap.
My classmates happy to be spared the rod.

Sister Mary Osmond understood my flaws.
She scheduled speech therapy.
None of their efforts helped
The school bullies more relentless than those in Maine
They beat my brother too.

Strangely my Latin
Perfect
At mass.
Mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa The priests
sacerdos intellexit me
I dreamed of the Devil.
I sang Ruby Tuesday without fault
I believed in neither God or Satan.
I was a teenager
Destined to live forever young.
Through books.
Music
Life.

I learned how to hide my satanic speech in the 60s or 70s
From singers and poets hid
Safe from ths in so many words
Poem scented with ancient languages especially for us who saw spirits. strawberries tasted different flesh was smooth as shaved peaches and then you stood atop a pass or sailed into a city and everything became more it was not magic but only the being here more than now yet therefore exists in spoken words Ths stood in my way But not of poems. poems whose power has not been lost in the modern age even for a boy with a thick tongue.