It’s a Mood
I want a surfer’s easy way of speaking,
sounds drifting from my mouth like
droopy helium balloons, yeah, man,
yeah, dude, it’s not your name I need
or even you. I want a French girl’s
vaulted ceiling mouth. I want to drag
my language over the sidewalk to stop
me from slipping on the tile. I tried
to train my handwriting once, sixth grade,
into the perky lower-case e’s of other
well-liked girls. I played with the dot
over my i. I wish I didn’t care how I
sounded. I would like to adjust that
part of my brain that lets in language.
I wish I could get my French back.
I wish I could get my inexperience
with French back and then learn it
again, Madame teaching us how to
say what we would like by saying
The Conditional, it’s a mood.
I identify with some of these wishes! Also, I love how the yearning for an easy, helium language has been answered, in a different way, by your poems. Yes?!
ReplyDeleteBonjour! I loved this one Hannah. Also the image, with those arbitrary numbers labeling the slices.
ReplyDeleteI don't miss Madame correcting my French.
Very cute...and I think it is more than just a way of talking...ocean surfers have no other cares it seems. : )
ReplyDelete"the conditional, it's a mood" oh my yes, just like "vaulted ceiling mouth" is an attitude. French is the language of diplomacy because it is so vague in all its particulars everyone can think they know what it means. I'd love to contemplate a French surfer but there's no word for "dude" - Americans just cut through all the hierarchies like an épée through quiche.
ReplyDeleteDragging one's language over the sidewalk, how awesome.
ReplyDelete