Real French
by Elizabeth M Castillo
My sister, with all her words,
doesn’t speak real French.
And when with her, neither do I.
I do not love, or laugh inside of it.
But I have learned to live,
and walk alongside it.
Real French.
Proper French.
Clean, and white, encased in glass
polished so bright
moving it anywhere south
is bound to leave an unsightly mark.
Real French,
I speak real French.
Pursing my lips, in a
perpetual state of readiness to be kissed,
like some stripey stereotype.
Real french
Qu’est ce que c’est?
C’est quoi ça?1
Ki été ha?2
As if language was not the lovechild
of invention and circumstance.
The loosening of vowels
below the equator is but
a small reparation to be paid.
Real French,
I speak real French,
even though I stumble between accords3,
and battle with the subjonctif 4
And I find sometimes,
when I feel it all,
quand tout est au vif 5,
real french doesn’t speak me.
–
1 What is it? What is that? (French)2 What is it? (Mauritian Creole)
3 Agreements (French)
4 Subjunctive (French)
5 When everything is raw (French)
Elizabeth M Castillo is a British-Mauritian poet, writer and language teacher. She lives in Paris with her family and two cats. When not writing poetry, she can be found working on her podcast or webcomic, pottering about her garden, or writing a variety of different things under a variety of pen names. She has words in, or upcoming in Selcouth Station Press, Pollux Journal, Authylem Magazine, Fevers of the Mind Press, and Tuna Fish Journal, among others.