They told my grandmother
that it was not her language
to speak, that she had been born
to a different vernacular,
not the Fino-Ugric blasphemy
of the few. No anya or
nagymama for her.
At school, she recited the plight
of Romanian peasants, at home,
she lived it. When she walked
the cow to the pastures, she lived it.
When she mothered her youngest brother,
she lived it. She let slip only once,
when she buried a doll in her father’s knapsack,
sent it to war with the windmills,
to the certain death of ragdolls.
“Viszlát, Kiralina,” in the whisper
children set aside for misdeeds
and prayer.
