"Miguel Translated", Miguel Barretto García
Miguel, are you surprised in Spanish? You are
Languaged as threads
Of genetic letters and entry letters
Treading across the Atlantic, across
Generations of Miguels—the farmer Miguel,
The merchant, the gambler, the father,
And you, Miguel
Are translated,
Sound hemmed around your tongue
Is foreign. Corrupted. When you pass a bowl
Of words from your father to your grandfather,
The length of the dinner table widens,
History evaporates. Your grandfather
Starves. Your message are strings of words
Dissolved of its shape, that when
They hang suspended in the kitchen,
They’re water vapor loosened by scars.
The ghosts crossing
The sound barrier can speak,
And when they speak, they are
Fragments, Miguel, you are
Fragmented—Your mother was skilful
Using all the unusual threads she could find,
That when you were wombed,
You wore invisible wounds
Exposed when dead skin sheds
And you are growing inside your flesh,
Growing persistently
Subverted, that when you wrote,
Miguel, you are,
However you insisted that you are,
The predictive text overruled
You, and you are,
Miguel, are you?
Miguel, are you surprised
In Spanish? You are
Languaged into a question
For Google to translate.