First Learned, Last Lost

By Darby Lyons

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

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I am not supposed to help
the speech therapist tells me
as she holds a list of words before my mother, 
saying, Tell me the opposite of each of these:

Short.   
            [Silence]   
Quiet.   
            [Silence]  
Dark.

My mother turns to me, looking—
                        apologetic
            embarrassed
small

but I am not supposed to help.

It’s been three weeks since Dad reported
from ICU, how she must have fainted,
toppled against the tile,
a gash and crack in her skull,
how one paramedic turned green,
had to leave the room to steady himself
after seeing the pool of vomit and blood.

Now we sit in brain injury rehab,
as she works her way back, reaching 
for words her memory lost,
not meaning, the doctors say, 
just words.

Linguists claim the first learned is 
the last lost. I want to offer words 
I believe must be lodged in her memory.
If I say We like to hop, will she say on top of Pop?
If I say Mr. Brown, will she say Upside Down?
Can the learning-to-read call and response 
my mother and I once shared
call her back to me?
Those were my firsts, not hers,
and I cannot know
what words she learned
in her own mother’s arms.

My memory cannot hold hers.

And I am not supposed to help,
so I smile, thinking 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘭. 𝘓𝘰𝘶𝘥. 
𝘓𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. The answer is 𝘓𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵.

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Darby Lyons is a retired high school English teacher living in Cincinnati. She received her MFA from the Sewanee School of Letters, and her work has appeared in Rogue Agent, Mud Season Review, Barren Magazine, and other publications. She reads poetry submissions for The Cincinnati Review, serves on the board of Women Writing for (a) Change, and reads news and poetry for Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired's broadcast reading service.

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