LANGUAGE IMMERSION

no i’m not the most anxious woman alive because my mom hasn’t died yet
her native language is worrying and she taught it to me well
when i consider mother tongue
i don’t think of gujarati ancestral dialect my mom didn’t pass on but
rather what did you have for dinner or
i missed your call is everything okay or
have you been using that foot cream i gave you
when i remember her voice
it’s the colonizer’s tongue
but it’s all her fury her joy her wonder her worry

when she sings in the kitchen
she hums she murmurs she croons
there are no words here

when i worry about my beloveds
it’s because love & loss are two sides
of the same coin. you can’t have one
without the other. you can’t have an ending
without the beginning—

when my mom asks me why
all my poems are about her dying
i don’t have a good answer which is
maybe yet another reason i’m killing her slowly

when i confess to her my fear
that when she ages she will forget
english and speak solely in gujarati,
she tells me oh yeah, that could happen

there is no way to talk about life without talking about death
there is no way for me to talk without her
& all the words she gave me
& all the worry she gave me
there is no language that reaches
past that future through that grief

there is no way for me to talk about my life without talking about my mother’s
she brought me into this world
only she can take me out
everyone else can try their damnedest but

i won’t die until she does
& even then, her life in mine
her heart in my chest
her voice in my head

singing in this home
keeping the silence at bay