Issue 22 - 1992

Coe Review • Issue 22
world on your face. You can touch it with your sticky hands.The
noise of the world that is not you, and then you say And then you say
Dad says Great. Now they’re both started. It’s like a choraleone
vast great vegetable symphony, and takes his coors out to the
sunny back porch.
The grandma’s tiny eyes are red and wet, filled with words
and memories of words. She says Aaaah. Aaaah, her big veiny
tongue extruding from her thin lipless mouth. Her mouth red and
glistening, but not like the marcie’s mouth, not like mother’s.
The gerber peaches are all gone, and now the grandma loves
you even more. You and your soggy toast.
And so you give her some.
Every weekday morning mother takes you to the special
school for special children. We just hope and hope, mother says. We
just hope for the lord’s compassion and his love. You hold the seat
belt’s bright silver buckle in your hands. The silver buckle is a big
hard word, and pulls the belt very tight. Mother says the lord words
again and again, and you put your hands together to speak the lord
words too, feeling them between your fingers. Then you get out of
the car at your school filled with special children. Big yellow
bumblebees on a big wooden sign, smooth and you like to touch.
This is your bright smile, this is your round stomach. Tea, tie, toe,
tum, tah, tea mrs. evans says. Her bright red fingertips touch your
teeth, your tongue, putting the words there. Tih. Tih. With the tip of
your teeth, with the tip of your tongue. So you tell her the grandma
word and she gives you a green m&m. And she says now with the
tih sound. Taaah. Taaah. Tooth, tongue, tea, toad, tot, and shows you
big pictures in her lap. A big green toad, a cup of hot tea. And you
say the grandma word again, and mrs. evans has more m&ms. Red,
yellow, black, orange, blue, brown. Because the grandma is a
tongue, a tooth, a toad. And all the other special children make
grandma sounds too in their big bicycle chairs with their broken eyes
and big shiny foreheads, and you’re all tea tie toe tum tah tea, and
scrub the stiff colored paper with bright crayons. The crayons snap
when you break them, just like mouths. You play in the tanbark yard,
bang blocks to music, eat graham crackers, and dad picks you up in
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