Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
Halting Speech
I read Cyrillic and I fracture
French; can find facilities
in Germany and Greece; know
just enough of folkway and odd
song to make a wedding
bearable, an amble worth
the time. I have a stamp
collector’s knowledge of Swiss
mail, and fiscal Portuguese.
It’s just my English—this
you know—devolves to utter
stutter as I face you past
the pepper and the salt; turns
slur and cipher: semaphore.
John Ditsky teaches at the University of Windsor. His poems have appeared in many small magazines. (updated 1976)