Jorge Quintana

I’m undocumented but I talk good

I’m not an expert in language,

but I’ve been speaking with two tongues
in my mouth since I was old enough
to translate my momma’s McDonald’s orders.
I was nine declining calls from bill collectors
and setting up our cable,
and I always made sure we had Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon.
The truth is I don’t know where half

the words I use come from.

Their etymologies are empty in my hands.
You say root word,
I say these words
been rooted in my sternum,
and I swear by the ever-fading
black of my hair
that meaning is not extracted
from textbooks,
but nobody ever taught me that.

I rehearsed my English in the mirror.
I pretended to have an American mouth.
My favorite English word is “fuck,”
which I figure is pretty fucking American.
Except I’m not fucking American.
You can keep the fucking,
and burn the American in
a little black box and bury it
in any desert south of here
with all of my cousins
and maybe instead of flowers
American history textbooks will grow.

If you can’t translate a word into English,
does it still exist?
does it still make sense?
I know some words in Spanish that cannot be translated into English.
My favorite is “empalagar”
which Jessica Salgado
explains means:

to eat so much of something
you can’t stand another bite

which almost sounds like a synonym
for growing up in America
when your soul was born
in a different place.

Aline Mello