Lost Language
He speaks intently now, a rush
of soft syllables, language of splash
and shriek, the occasional word we recognize
as one of ours ‒ “Cah!” (anything with wheels),
“Sheeze!” (what he would eat for every meal).
But mostly his tales are unintelligible,
though we strain to comprehend,
tilt our better ears toward him,
encourage him to tell us more, again.
Imagine the frustration:
All the information he pours out
to his dim-witted beloveds, who laugh
and babble back and get it all wrong,
scramble in translation what he struggles
to express, sole speaker
of this language that will die
as he masters ours, its sweet sibilants
sliding into oblivion, depriving us
forever of what he could convey
only in his native tongue.
Rebecca Baggett is the author of the prize-winning collection, The Woman Who Lives Without Money (Regal House Publishing, 2022), and four chapbooks, including God Puts on the Body of a Deer (Main Street Rag) and Thalassa (Finishing Line Press). Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Asheville Poetry Review, Georgia Review, Poetry Daily, Salt, and The Sun. She lives with her husband, Elmer Clark, in Athens, GA, where she stewards Little Free Library #110,420, plants native habitat over her quarter-acre, and rejoices in her four-year-old grandson.
