Bilingual (Part 1)

Sometimes in boring

routine of the

white-english language

I will remember a word

in Spanish that used to mean

something to me

And I do not know

the english translation

I pause

Slow

Down

And

Smile

My heart isn’t american

But my throat has jumped ship, and boasts english rhetoric as if I knew all the

words in the dictionary, with right diction, and grammar, and syntax, and

with the useless ability to tell you the difference between who and whom

My throat swallows

all the periods and commas,

but spits out the accents,

and english is so dull that

not even decorations on top of vowels

could make me swoon

and melt and dance

Sometimes I remember words

in Spanish

that I haven’t learned to translate

and this makes me feel like

my heart is still whole.

Still brown.