Tender//At War with Language

Nnadi Samuel

“your name, immigrating / into another language where hurt is easy / to pronounce” — Eric

Yip

Pa’s beautiful youth had him resolute—stuffing warm bright tea into his lungs, & racing nine stairs down the hallway to defy the long queue of pensioners, brooding over a wreck of a bus.

a glossary of literary terms starched to his breast pocket. name it ‘consistency,’ I’ll prize each by its ‘cons’: the way metaphor lives rent-free on his chest. the way hyperbole exaggerates his walk steps.

the flashbacks, rearranging him in neat reverse.

his face lifts at the wholesome thought of language, as he mouths the disadvantage to dissonance.

holding the grammar to my lip, I fondle a rough note. the alphabets—worrying my spit like an oat, like English itself was a stirrable omen: this wreck of vowel, handed to our lineage. the slim weight of its inheritance rubberizing my gum. ripened verb in brine-soaked font. tongue, bruised to whitening.