Foreign Tongue
Kay Bynum
I read a book of poems
by women
and wrote one of my own
perfect rhythm, meter
and no boring, girlish rhyme
but in a foreign tongue
stranger than my own words
are to me at times
I cried because
my mother could not
understand it
or me
and would perhaps shed
her own tears
at the words I write like
masturbation and thighs
and men
coming into me
has been hard
she stood beside me
labored for me and with
me through it all
and still I cannot write her
a Hallmark rhyme
or Valentine
How very profound that poem is. How many of us have chafed at the pain/resentment/pain of not being able to write Hallmark card words for our mothers. However, now, five years after her death, I realize that although she didn’t understand, recoiled from it often, she always read each new piece.
Same with my mother. They tried their best. And they were secretly proud of our outspokenness.–MS