THE PERSISTENT ACCENT

87. szám
2006. május 1.

PATRICIA DOBLER

      Until the grave covers me, on foreign soil
      I shall remain Hungarian
      Hungarian folk song


      Because this fat old lady
      has exactly the voice
      of my dead grandma,
      I find myself
      trailing her through the supermarket
      as she complains to her friend
      about the Blacks, the kids, the prices,
      age, disease, and certain death,
      and Im seduced
      by that Hungarian accent
      decades in this country cant diminish,
      and I see the smoky fires
      of the harvesters, a golden-braided girl
      fetching their dinners of peppers and lamb,
      and I follow her
      through the aisles,
      wanting to lay my face
      between her hands,
      to ask her for a song.

      Collected Poems az Autumn House kiadásában