Lost Tongue

St. Germain restaurant in late summer—
we didn’t speak the language

and the waiter didn’t care—he had
bottles of water and wine to open.

We peered at phrases from a safe
distance—listened to recordings

polished with knowing. Each
inflection a destination mapped

out in black ink. In the world
of reeking taxis and torn

luggage, we longed for empty
trolleys and swift customs agents,

for something native—uncovered,
stripped clean. Words rushed past

our ears like a false heart, uneven
in cadence and rhythm. Letters pressed

against each other—foreign, mangled.
But we conned ourselves. In school I had

transcribed the medieval into the modern,
trained my tongue to move around

ancient texts like it belonged. But even
with repetition, our voices broke into pieces,

thickened in all the wrong ways. Lips stiffened
around each blistered syllable, clinging

to the backs of our teeth. The man at the next
table took pity on us, translated the blackboard

menu from French into Spanish, pointed
to places on his body like a saint blessing

himself: head, breast, and thigh.
Our lost tongues, felled mouths, undone—

until all that remained was salt, light
and spoon; eyes, lung and moon.