An Abecedarian Befouled in Tongues
by C.T. Lark
A question, how do I meld my mother tongue with my mother’s? My Mamaja? My
Babička? How do I lift my hands and press this broken
Cup against my lips, like a promise? Maybe I
Don’t know the word for addiction, but
Ešte trochu seems to slip so
Freely from my teeth. My mother’s tongue is lodged in my throat,
Gorged, corroded by every swallow—words like precocious, soliloquy,
Homogeneous—they smolder. It is
Impossible these days to decide whether to call him
Jano or John, even if I can trace his roots to meet mine, he doesn’t
Know how to form the words, and I can only choke on my own. Why does this language
Love to forget us?
My mother spent twenty years molding her mouth to fit these English words, out of
Necessity, hardly love. Hard to believe it’s now my drug, how willingly I
Open my mouth,
Part my throat, pretending my tongue is just another unfinished word, and swallow,
Quenched and quelled in spite of the burn. Hey, at least I can still roll my
R’s? It almost looks fake the way my blood bleeds
Serbo-Slovakian American, like a guláš of all the wrong tastes, unflatteringly
Tough through each chew. When I was eight, I learned the word
Úsměv and thought of how it contorted my lips in ways that smile stilled them.
Všetko najlepšie, ja mám t’a rád, dobrú noc—disjointed phrases are
What I speak in. Diacritics sour this abecedarian. They corrode the letters the way an R-
X can sequester, then render the throat to one purpose: swallow. So, last one, then no more
Ypsilons or carons, hindrances to my Anglo-Saxon fix. But, please, spare me just one word:
Živeli. Now, let the word soak and sog, until the lump can dislodge.