I Dream in Many Languages

At night my mouth loosens its borders.

Vowels cross without passports.

Consonants soften, trade coats,

borrow each other’s breath.

In one dream I am small again,

running barefoot through red earth,

my name called in a voice

that rolls like distant thunder.

In another, I bow slightly

before entering a room

where shoes wait in patient rows,

and apology is folded into greeting.

I count in one language

when I am anxious.

I pray in another

when I am afraid.

I argue in the one

that learned sharpness first.

The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

Somewhere between sleep and waking

my mother tongue knocks gently,

asking to be let back in.

It smells like pepper soup and rain.

It carries proverbs heavy with dust

and laughter that does not translate.

But the language of survival

sits at the edge of the bed,

straight-backed, efficient.

It reminds me of forms to fill,

voices to soften,

sentences trimmed to fit

inside someone else’s comfort.

When I say “home,”

three different landscapes answer.

When I say “love,”

it changes posture depending on who is listening.

In the morning

I wake with a sentence half-formed

something that belongs everywhere

and nowhere at once.

My tongue hesitates.

My heart does not.