when they leave the reich;
please and thank you melt
into a la puta, que le vaya
bien and don't get me started
on the Russian immigrants,
who gut-laugh because kishkas
is a word I learned from Yiddish
and it has Slavic roots. Slavic
they say with a boom behind
the a, aaaaa ha a discovery.
On the radio, it's time for the Tohono
O'odham broadcast, the desert people
who clip and gulp every word,
speak with a mouth full of mouse-fur
and repeat in English for all
but the 30 people who got
the first go-round. They promise
me a night of chicken-scratch;
folk fiddling and wailing if I want
to head west eight miles.
Every so often a potluck gringo
tells me that this is America
and we speak English here.
This is America: let the good times
roll, the cajun lesson tonight
is zydeco.