My poem "Childhood Spanish"

This poem first appeared in Poetica Magazine. I am sharing it again in light of Stephen Miller's recent comments on "cosmopolitan" outlooks and the Trump Administration's demand that prospective immigrants be fluent in English. 

Childhood Spanish

Language I learned en la escuela primaria,

en una programa bilingüe, language of homework

and a terrifying third grade teacher, language I feared

forgotten after every summer.

Language of nearly none of my ancestors,

except those fleeing Sephardim, 

who dispersed in all directions

and, I have read, through all Ashkenazim.

Language once purged, still so Catholic

school seemed parochial by mistake,

as if my native English needn’t be selective,

purged of Jew-you-down and good Christian praise.

Language that feels so American,

not the Russian, the German, the Polish

my grandparents’ parents fled Europe fluent in

and shed, keeping only Yiddish.

Language that confused my English pronunciation,

loosened my accent, further cultivated in me

the seeds of a rootless cosmopolitan,

even here, in the Land of the Free…

--Maia Evrona