Για την Παγκόσμια Ημέρα Μητρικής Γλώσσας: Denice Frohman - "Accents"

 

ACCENTS [Denice Frohman]

my mom holds her accent like a shot gun with two good hands;
her tongue all brass knuckle slipping in between her lips.
her hips are all laughter and wind-clap.
she speaks of sanchoco;
of spanish and engilsh pushing up and against one another in rapid fires.

see, there is no telling my momma to be quiet,
my mama don't know, "quiet."
her voice is one size better fit all .
and you best not tell her to hush,
she waited too many years for her voice to arrive to be told it needed housekeeping.

see, english sits in her mouth remixed.
so strawberry becomes: el strawberry
and cookie becomes: el cookie
and kitchen, key chain, and chicken all sound the same...

my mother doesn't say yes, she says: aha!
and suddenly the sky in her mouth becomes a Hector Lavoe song.

her tongue can't lay itself down enough for the english language.
it got too much hip, too much bone, too much conga, too much cuatro to two step;
got too many piano keys in between her teeth,
it got much clave, too much hand claps, got too much salsa to sit still.
it's being an anxious child, wanting to make play-dough out of concrete.
english be too neat for her kind of wonderful.

her words spill in conversation between women who's hands are all they got;
sometimes our hands are all we've got.
and accents that remind us that we are still bomba, suplena;
you say: wepa!
wepa!
you say: wepa!
wepa!
and a stranger becomes your hermano
you say: dale!
dale!
and a crowd becomes a family reunion.

my mother's tongue is a telegram from her mother decorated with the coqui's of el campo
so even when her lips can barely stress themselves around english
her accent is a stubborn compass
always pointing her towards home