by Angela Acosta

 

Fever dream Spanish

pokes at my brain;

the first time I 

let Spanish syntax

infiltrate my mind

I am on the surrealist 

edge of consciousness

as melting clocks

mark midnight.

Last name spoken finally

as the vowels demand.

I stretch at grammar,

pushing towards a paradigm shift,

take me, take this girl

whose family no longer speaks this language,

take her and make her fluent,

gift her this spell to turn sentences

from strings of words

to full resonance,

waves of adaptability 

singing dichos, corridos, refranes, trabalenguas,

and all the other idioms and tongue-twisters I love.

Rectangular hyperbola, my words push away,

towards infinity, never touching native fluency,

yet expansive, resonant, triumphant.