Lengua
My tongue betrays me.
Though light pink,
it may as well be white.
I may as well be, too.
Speak not of Peter Piper,
Unique New York,
great Greek grapes.
Tell me of Pepe Pecas,
Iquitos and Trujillo,
Cusco and Arequipa.
Feed me lomo saltado,
aji de gallina,
papas a la Huancaina.
Like melting ice
along the Andes,
let them rub
against my taste buds.
Teach me
my birth mother’s tongue.
When I’m fluent,
help me find her.
I don’t care if she sticks
out her tongue.
Playfully,
I might stick out mine.
And await the palabras I pray will follow.
Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which he will have his debut chapbook, This is My Body, published in 2025. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.
