Sue Fagalde Lick

Father and Mother Tongue

I seen,
he ain’t,
asshole,
bullshit,
son of a bitch.

            I’ll give you a palmada,
            go pee in the casinha,
            cala-te a boca,
            sientese.
            Babão.

Polack, Roosky,
Slovenian, Wop,
Okie, stupid,
dirty Mexican.
He’s an ‘it’.

            May I, please,
            he and I (not me),
            pic-ture, not pitcher
            (that’s a baseball guy).
            Ain’t is not a word.

Chesterfield,
Frigidaire,
little Dodge coupe,
Crick, not creek,
Cots and artychokes.

            You can but may not,
            it’s lie, not lay.
            You get a crick
            in your neck.
            Enunciate.

Speak American.

            Never correct your father.

Sue Fagalde Lick escaped life as a journalist in Silicon Valley to write poetry and play music on the Oregon Coast. She has published two chapbooks, Gravel Road Ahead and The Widow at the Piano: Poems by a Distracted Catholic. Her full-length collection, Dining Al Fresco with My Dog, a finalist in the Sally Albiso competition, is forthcoming from MoonPath Press in 2024. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, The MacGuffin, Cirque, Sage Soup, Cloudbank, New Letters, The American Journal of Poetry, and the recent anthology Into the Azorean Sea, featuring the poetry of Portuguese Americans.