“T as in Tom . . . U . . . F as in Frank,”
I tell the voice at the bookstore or the bank,
Knowing the chances of its being right
On form or package are extremely slight
Unless the clerk repeats (and most don’t bother)
This catechism I learned from my father—
T as in Tom, U, F as in Frank.
For this ritual I have myself to thank—
Twice I’ve had and forfeited the chance
To trade the burden and extravagance
Of five syllables for one or two.
I couldn’t do it when I said “I do,”
Not even after three years in the South,
Where voweled names are mangled in the mouth.
What’s in a name? Why, a family line,
Identity, tradition, but in mine
I had the gallop of the Latin dactyl;
Tufa, crumbly stuff, so richly tactile,
So unlike Grandpa’s monumental granite;
And, from the intrepid who could scan it,
I had the liquid lilting of iello
(One teacher sang it sweetly as a cello);
And those plump vowels, juicy and alive—
At one per syllable, I had all five.
In school, through endless dreamy afternoons,
I brooded like a druid casting runes
Over the page to see how many words
My name would make, releasing them like birds
From the magician’s cloak I always wore.
Every year they multiplied, to more
Than I’d thought possible, as rat and tale,
Tall and tell gave way to trill and flail,
If and far to float, aloft and lift.
One day a rill might bubble from a rift,
The next an elf warble a silver lute,
A leering troll swig ale or proffer fruit,
One taste of which might lead to fault and fall.
They scattered, and I catalogued them all:
Found fore and after, leaping fire and air
(With sandstone, all the elements were there),
Caught Uriel, Milton’s angel of the sun,
Wearing cloudy tulle, and (nearly done),
Bright Ariel, Will Shakespeare’s airy sprite,
Hidden in the middle, in plain sight—
Caught him in my net, then let him go,
Happy in his charms as Prospero.