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A Matter of Translation by Judith Kelly Quaempts

The Indian boy went to boarding school where only English was allowed. One evening he was overheard speaking his native tongue.

His teachers held him down, taped a bar of soap in his mouth and left him alone in the dark.

Pneumonia, said the letter sent home with his body.




Judith Kelly Quaempts lives in rural eastern Oregon. A member of Internet Writers Workshop, her handful of poems can be read at Camroc Press Review, Flash Fire 500, Drunk and Lonely Men, and T-Zero.