His gift to me from Paris
was a Webster’s International
Collegiate Dictionary from1945.
He’s thirty or thereabouts,
though his exact age matters
less than the words different
generational cohorts.
Our mouths are expatriate
as we argue denotation
and connotations, our respective
bedside dictionaries the accent
marks of fore-play, after-play,
even mid-play: one or the other
has cried out something requiring
verification though “correct
pronunciation” must be a flexible
term. The centered-period
quickens him towards his future
even as he delivers me the past.
New words appearing that year:
blitzkrieg, estrogen, air condition,
montage, and they come bound
in a promise that what was new
becomes what we rely on
to piece together syllabic lives.
In the clarity of Sartre’s three
o’clock hour, accused of being
too early or late, we proclaim
a new language: colloquial,
patois, our feux d’artifice.
French: fireworks; display of wit.
Laura McCullough
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-guide-to-pronunciation/
