Memorization came easily for her, and at her first awareness
of this, she assumed everyone had been born equally able.
As she grew older, this gift, she realized, was a special one.
She’d won intermediate school Spelling Bees with ease.
She could visualize everything she read, could quote pages from books
and recite poems of any length immediately to her tremendous joy.
But she kept this gift quietly, first because she worried it made her freakish,
and later because she didn’t want others to resent her exceptional ability.
Contemplating graduate school, she wondered what might be
a discipline where she could put her photographic memory to best use.
This had to be a field where she could make good money, because,
raised poor, she hoped to give her parents enough to retire early.
In the end she chose law, but before she could give them anything,
they were killed in a car accident coming to watch her perform in court.
Lanning Lee 