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the grammar of touch
Andrea Briggs
On a good day, I speak three languages.
The first, the modern English of my mother tongue,
spoiled to have learned it at my parents’ knee
then to have tried and failed in a class,
exceptions to every pronunciation
twisting around my tired tongue.
The second, the Spanish I studied but never quite forgot,
conjugating half-remembered sentences
to form phrases once useful,
literacy skills now suited only for
ordering arroz in a restaurant.
But the third, I speak the least and like the best,
with the grammar of touch a flexible one
as your hand curls around mine,
soft knuckles and thick padded fingertips
stroking along the inside of my wrist.
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