Speaking in Tongues
Now when we talk,
my mother and I,
we speak through fog.
The Covid rules are gone,
but the distance remains.
The strokes took not speech
but lucidity. She seems
to understand, but answering,
speaks in tongues, “mumameda,”
inventing language all over again,
She fiddles in her lap
with something that isn’t there
and watches the sunlight
spread on the floor.
Says clearly, “That’s nice.”
I describe our vacation:
the cranberry bogs that swayed
beneath our feet, as if any fool
could walk on water.
She complains, “That man,”
finger shaking at the wall,
but the staff are all women.
We go on like this
for an hour or more,
sharing the inexplicable
mysteries of our ordinary days,
understanding nothing.
The sunsplash creeps
over our feet and beyond,
and when I rise to go,
she clutches my hand,:
“mumameda.”
• • •
Richard Spilman is the author of In the Night Speaking and of two chapbooks, Dig and Suspension. He is also the author of two collections of short fiction: Hot Fudge and The Estate Sale.