Rebecca Zaritsky

english second language

i try to write in
the language I was named in,
but the keyboard
is too strange, and the
pen is out of ink.
the words denature
in my mouth, and
i cannot make them out.

my father’s shadow
falls over the page.
i remember how this
language tastes when
it falls from his lips,
in droplets on the floor--
like sugar cookies
and like home.

i try to channel
my grandmother’s tongue,
but its strength and vigor
overwhelms the page--
the poem shrinks away
with its tail between its legs,
afraid of her walking stick.

it never returns to the page.
after a while, i stop chasing it.

---

Melody

my heart
is played by a mariachi band.
the guitar needs tuning,
and the accordion screeches,
the trumpeter has one arm,
and he cries in the middle
of the love songs. the music limps,
it stumbles, it falls flat
onto its face. you stand up
and applaud.