| ESL Class: Grammar Lesson
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Her thin wrist is poised over the page, He used to be a teacher This is a classroom filled with used-to-be's, A Somali woman veiled head to shoe Diane Pecoraro Diane Pecoraro is a bureaucrat by day and writer of verse during the dark hours;
with painstaking attention to the words,
meaning and sound
of the discordant new language
practiced with the person in the next seat
from another color and country
whose skin exudes unfamiliar spices.
in what used to be Russia
She used to have a farm
in Cambodia before she came
carrying only an iron tea kettle.
Those two over there --
neighbors in the same town
of the so-called "former" Yugoslavia.
a hard concept to teach in English.
They need it though
to explain who they once were.
asks a question, pronounces "used to
with three syllables instead of two.
As he shifts in his chair to attend,
the Buddhist monk forms a fluid arc of saffron.
His robes hang out below the frayed wool coat
he wears during this hard winter.
On his feet hiking boots, laces open,
chafe rough against bare legs.
MN Department of Education, 1500 Highway 36 West,Roseville, MN 55113
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