pretender

Great Pretender

 

I now they were laughing behind my back

and mother was ashamed of me when

I tried to speak like a book, I took evening

classes to be able to speak as the fine

people did, I was an imposter and laughed

 at in the street. But poverty of birth clings

to me like dirt under finger nails and I will

always be damned for denying my class.

At last I speak as we did in our street, had

they heard me now they would have been

proud of me, nodded sagely and said:

“the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”