Dyslexia Poem - Winifred Hughes

Dyslexic
Eye won’t track
the pencil in the doctor’s
hand or on the spread page.
Look where d is tumbling into p,
f and g bait each other
with barbed hooks, look
what means the same
right to left, slantwise, upside
down. How did sounds get
flattened, round world into
black scratches, jugglers’
dropped oranges and apples
still spinning on the blank
sheet, all the pith
pounded out of them,
eye stammering for something
real to look at, hand no
thing to grip. Words dance.
Sith this pot is top, but may
be tub. Toom is moot.
We might not die as
palindrome. So call it
spelling, cast that spell
on the misspoken
ones, some of us born
that way, some
headed there.