Late in his life, Papi forgets himself
and switches from his broken English
to his muy eloquente español.
My husband glances up at me,
flashing his monolingual SOS,
What’s he saying? Or talking on the phone
about his imminent regreso home
after four decades living in New York,
he starts to roll his r’s and sails off
into a stream of Spanish consciousness.
The family wonders if he should be checked,
if he’s regressing, if he’s showing signs
of early Alzheimer’s, as he rattles on
about his imminent return, ¡Por fin!
mi regreso a mi tierra. Ya yo estoy
cansado de traducción.—But I feel glad
that he is speaking in his native tongue,
after so many years of struggling
to bring all of himself into inglés,
and tell the great adventure of his life.
Now, he gives up midsentence, pours his sense
into the deeper cistern of his soul,
his native tongue—¡La lengua mas bella!
so he would tell me when in shame I’d beg
that he speak English with my teenage friends,
or rather (but I didn’t dare say this)
that he keep quiet to avoid their scorn.
Now, as your final regreso draws close,
cuéntanos, Papi, todo en español,
all that we lost of you in English.