Lingua

I regret my accent, which is occasionally good enough
for taxi drivers to want to take me beyond my destination.
It’s the way callejon rolls off my tongue like a dirty word.
I can’t help it, anymore than I can help buying the coffin maker’s
last two beeswax candles because I love their slow, holy burn.
I regret that my husband has taken up birding and flags
down the blue-throated Mexican Hummingbird
who flies backwards in his honor, then lays two small, white eggs.
I can’t help it he’s become the rooftop curator
of El Museo de las Aves de Mexico, cataloguing without effort the Azur-rumped Tanager, the Indigo Bunting, but most often the Common Inca Dove.
I regret not having done more work of my own in this area,
but while my naming is faulty, nightly
I yank strands of my hair for their nests.