The Secret Language

This language that you speak-

I speak it too.

You thought I wouldn’t recognize

the signs: the odd curve

of your mouth around those words-

holding onto something

it can't quite chew.

But I saw the words fester

as snakes in your throat

the syllables; little teeth, leaving marks

as they slither out.

The phrases

a thousand years old

yet you know them so well.

We were holding hands when

they were passed to us- don't you remember?

The grammar

taught to you in the womb-

feed to you through the placenta

as your spine was unfolding.

This language that we speak-

we learned in no school.

Taught

pressed into skin

like pencil across paper

preached

into bone marrow

on Sundays.