AFTER BEING ASKED, WHAT IS YOUR MOTHERTONGUE? by Jalynn Harris

featured in Obsidian Volume 49.2

I be summin’ cuz
she be
po’ preterite
what had happened
been bad.
when I cain’t
whole breath
in my mouth
she fights for
support
ghetto is
a concord
of this skin.
still, she survive
this semantic bleaching
to escape
she loves
she’s like my moms
she tell me
I’m bad &
issa a habit

she habitual be
a rule-bound rope
she don’t fuck with copulas
been been done she
itis of the tongue
she be a
sentence. “nother summin” worked
she work
bad English
is what dummy do
talk is habit
of us in da ’hood
she ain’t seen no simple past
this complex present
is not nice nor a thing
without invention
without dying
and I’m the kid
I ain’t perfect but
I cain’t never not be home
at the door of my tongue.