Fledgling

I speak
in fragments
and they skip
across pavement
as I play.
The crow kids mock
with pointed stubby fingers
and mouths full
of cackles and pain.
I soothe my broken words
by straightening the bent letters
with unsteady hands.
I don’t want to trip over
my fledgling tongue.
My mother tells me to
‘just spit it out!’
I stumble over
the outcast letters
in alum-mm-in-num
or bo-l-th
as each syllable tries
to fly from my bottom lip.
Try to pluck them before the crows hear,
because insults slip so easily
from group mob beaks.
Loose alphabet collects
in the nest of my throat.
I feed myself each phrase with gentle fingers,
and feel as each letter wriggles against my tongue.
I need to stomach the language.
Learn to enunciate words
from my flustered wing lips
and learn to catch flight
off my vocal chords.
Small frightened sparrow,
I hide in the corner and try
to stretch out each sound
over my clumsy tongue.
Afraid I will confuse how to fly
with the failure of slurred letters,
I practice each syllable
again and again,
again and
again.
Until my fledgling tongue
learns whip and snap,
and my words leap
over my feathered lips.