Roughhousing 

with the language as foreign as my own

son, I twist a muscle:

a total numbness of the apparatus. I choke 

on words. I am desperate for the language 

to turn in my direction. It doesn’t. 

 “This is not how you pronounce it,” my seven-

year-old corrects me, full of love. The truth 

is, he is as foreign to me, as I am 

to him. Aren’t we all?

To feel better, I make a book of wrong words.

“It’s going to be my buttress,” I say

with a serious face, and he bursts 

into laughter.