Dámelo
Of course, I can’t recall those words,
Those early sounds that first made sense,
When I first knew the reach of speech.
Now, I watch my young son strive
To comprehend the sounds I say:
Go open the door. Let Lula outside.
Staring off, sensing images with sounds,
He jumps to his feet, skips through the house,
Shouting for the terrier, shouting, Time to pee!
In Uruguay, at twenty-four, after years
Of español, I couldn’t comprehend a word,
Not a single syllable anybody said.
The castellano slipping from their lips
Could’ve been a cast of Cyrillic characters
Sunning themselves on a Black Sea beach.
On the beach in Maldonado,
A baby-oil redhead in a blue bikini
Says, Yo fui a la playa ayer.
The yo like zhoe,
The playa like plazha,
The fui sounding French, not Spanish.
Then lolling in the surf alone,
I watch a boy toss a ball to a girl.
When the girl refuses to toss it back,
The little boy kicks at the centimeter surf,
Splashing and shouting, Dámelo!
Dah-may-low. Dah-may-low.
The syllables pierce the air in my ears
Like red-tipped beaks of white-bellied gulls.
Da-me-lo. Give-it-to-me. Gimme back my ball, you brat!
You’d have thought those sounds were lemons,
A line across a slot machine. Dámelo—!
He shouted, teaching me the reach of speech.
Compass Rose, 2009
