excerpt from Translation by Julian Randall

excerpt from Translation

 

My mother hangs up the phone

scrapes loose the tears

prepares to tell me

who is dying    this time

I speak no Spanish

my mother is the translator

of the dying

my family is always the dying

I say family despite the fact

I have attended none of their funerals

 

My abuelita was a ricocheting ghost

she died once    and I forgot

an entire language

Ok    I didn’t forget

it just became inconvenient to remember

who wants a language for the living anyway?

 

An inventory of my tongue

yields nothing

that looks like my mother

the resemblance stops at the mouth

 

She is fluent in a language

I am only ever ugly in

she falls asleep in front of the tv

her show muted    

I wonder if in her dreams 

I can speak