She daydreams in Polish.
Decades tumbled
since she whispered to her sisters,
the party line thrumming
with secrets spilt in their native tongue.
Sinking down in her wheelchair seat,
slipping in and out of sleep
she transliterates the nursing home.
Polkas replace Sinatra on the intercom.
Stacks of krem topple next to her coffee cup.
The hairdresser vies with the dryer,
gossiping in a lowland dialect.
Sajak spins a Cyrillic wheel,
announcing prizes with a thick accent.
Even the nurse’s nametag
has gained an extra k and z.
She smiles through her sleep,
her translation finally complete.
•
(First published in Not Somewhere Else But Here, A Contemporary Anthology of Women and Place [Sundress Publications, 2014])
