Poetry

I am too British, I use a fork when I eat

by Darshita Jain

a spoon to scoop chunks of my mother’s language
that I can extract, and spin into an introduction on first-days of
college when asked the correct pronunciation of my name.
I can sing the alphabet in four languages,
spell words, bridge them together into a nonchalant statement about thinking
in english.
                                                                                          They never rest on my tongue,
a scratchy surface used too much to house a foreign body —
I have been infested. Watch me spit (try to translate).

Appeared in Issue Fall '19