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Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

By Aimee NezhukumatathilPosted Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2004, at 12:26 PM ET

the fear of long words

Listen to Aimee Nezhukumatathil reading this poem.

On the first day of classes, I secretly beg
my students Don't be afraid of me. I know
my last name on your semester schedule

is chopped off or probably misspelled—
or both. I can't help it. I know the panic
of too many consonants rubbed up
against each other, no room for vowels

to fan some air into the room of a box
marked Instructor. You want something
to startle you? Try tapping the ball of roots

of a potted tomato plant into your cupped hand
one spring, only to find a small black toad
who kicks and blinks his cold eye at you,
the sun, a gnat. Be afraid of the X-rays

for your teeth or lung. Pray for no dark spots.
You may have pneumonoultromononucleosis—
coal lung. Be afraid of money spiders

tiptoeing across your face while you sleep
on a sweet, fat couch. But don't be afraid
of me, my last name, what language I speak
or what accent dulls itself on my molars.

I will tell jokes, help you see the gleam
of the beak of a mohawked cockatiel. I will
lecture on luminescent sweeps of ocean, full

of tiny dinoflagellates oozing green light
when disturbed. I promise dark gatherings
of toadfish and comical shrimp just when you think
you are alone, hoping to stay somehow afloat.

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Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of Miracle Fruit, winner of the 2002 Tupelo Press Prize. She is assistant professor of English at SUNY-Fredonia.

Click here to visit Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project site.

To submit poetry to Slate, send up to five poems and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: Robert Pinsky, Slate Magazine, Boston University, 236 Bay State Road, Boston, MA, 02215.

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