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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 3706 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Speak Treezaa (T.E. Ballard) I’ve begun to understand all language. The small boy next to me is speaking Russian. He wants his hat tied under his chin just so and the woman moving her hands on the bus is talking to a deaf lover who was not there yesterday but will be today. Today he will return and the cat has spoken under the wheel, her sound muffled but everything is clear. A small bump, blip even the buzz of the engine is forming its first consonant, vowel. Mother, father it says, clear as day or moon and I’ve begun to read the Chinese characters on paper, to place names, dates of the dead, political plots, where you can find cabbage at fifty cents a head. A trail of ants is departing but no one is listening. I’ve become a linguist in bus, paper, and tongue. It does not matter. I tie a knot under the boy’s chin; send the woman a look that tomorrow she should leave. I will exit at the next stop because in four blocks the bus will break down. |
