i sing in two tongues
they act as chisels, compasses, a sword, perhaps
scribes, nettles, meddlers – a starting point, an end.
the manual for their language lies in guess-work,
chop up the queen’s english
use your abuela’s mannerisms
use sarcasm the british way
practice your erre con erre cigarro
to train yourself back up again
& where you end up is who you’ve become –
one tongue rolling itself over the r’s, revved like an engine
the other blurring them into vowels – it seems i’ve studied this britishness
a parrot of whatever county i find myself in,
the syntactic accidents curving into my back like a comma, a flavour
that converges on the palette is a bitter rebellion
of ballad & bone.
amén. empty ritual. bendición. hello & goodbye – te amo
means more than i love you
me haces falta. you are missing from me
in spanish i am grieving,
in english i just miss you
but nothing happens without a declaration –
word after word, the river follows.