how to read

immacula immigrant entrepreneur good with numbers my grandmother down comforter vendor five flights of stairs off flatbush illiterate well into her sixties can you believe it was a patient preacher taught her how to read the king james thickness newly translated into kreyol hallelujah her own mother tongue amen and suddenly scattered ants dropped raisins distant birds became sure sentences sacred signs of a god who could possible impossible

she invited us to brooklyn storefront broken window church school buzzing neon sign scratched up fold up chairs no heat on but she waded into kiddie pool immaculate in white satin music of bare hands tambourines stomping payless heels trying to pass for jericho’s horns five seconds under water then a born again mermaid washed in colorless blood eternal fist out of water knocking door to door walking testimony miracle mind after all that time new tricks chèlbè for the lord

later she came to visit have mercy longest christmas of my life the talcum floral smell of fresh faith on bent knee past midnight praying loud enough to shake me out of grunge rock teen dreams i tiptoed in the dark snuck a peek of her bobbing head in holy plastic rollers a red leather bound bible held up like torch mirror flag diploma just fanatic for her heavenly patriarch his pure blizzard love

and did i dream the kodachrome seventies pictures a crowded party she threw in a basement for la sirène live drummers disco friends long table covered in cerulean silk silver sequins brown baby dolls with pearls around necks like sea queens broken bits of conch shells glued to moonshine bottles can i imagine singing prayers i can’t spell

true learning jesus made her distant more judgmental a little less generous but i’m in awe of that elder new reader noisy believer she who could finally write her own lovely name