Vernacular
I am hungry for a language
from the mouth of a foreign country
where sound is a fountain I drink from
in small increments.
Where the word for flowers melt
into flores and green tastes verde.
We eat pescado while gazing out to sea.
Sí, and la gente, the people, are gentle.
Once, we caught fish all day.
You dove for langosta.
Once, this was home, a palapa
of thatched palms on a beach.
I learned the phrases slowly,
the people so patient with me.
Christina asking, María, flaca,
do you have any pescado para mi, hoy?
Mary, thin one, do you have any fish
for me today?
María, te gustaría una cerveza, un mango?
Mary, would you like a beer, a mango?
Tender Cristina, her small children
gathered around her skirt
as Jose’s pozole simmered on the stove,
the entire sky ablaze.
Mary Morris is the author of three books of poetry: Enter Water, Swimmer (selected by X.J. Kennedy), Dear October (Arizona-New Mexico Book Award), and Late Self-Portraits (Wheelbarrow Book Prize). Her work has been published in Boulevard, North American Review, Poetry, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, and Rattle. A recipient of the Rita Dove Award, Western Humanities Review Prize, and the National Federation Press Women’s Book Prize, Mary has been invited to read her poems at the Library of Congress, which aired on NPR. Kwame Dawes selected her work for American Life in Poetry from the Poetry Foundation.
