And sometimes my brain decides that the word "of" would look prettier with a "v" like this: ov. It was funny the first few times in college, brain, but now not so much when I have to correct all my emails.
What really concerns me are the days when my brain thinks with an accent. Like when I had to write the word "wives" yesterday and it came out "woives." That's not a typo. I'm actually thinking "woives." What is that, cockney? I like England, too, brain, but no one understands your dialect.
I get the idea of thinking phonetically when you're just learning a language, but words like "of" should not be tripping me up at this point in my life. Is this some kind of latent disorder that's emerging or am I just really tired?
The Local Language
The way she puts her fingers to his chest when she greets him.
The way an old man quiets himself,
or that another man waits, and waits a long time, before speaking.
It’s in the gaze that steadies, a music
he grows into—something about
Mexico, I imagine, how he first learned about light there.
It’s in the blank face of every child,
a water that stands still amid the swirling current,
water breaking apart as it leaves the cliff and falls forever
through its own, magnificent window.
The way a young woman holds out a cupped hand, and doves come to her.
The way a man storms down the street as if to throw open every door.
And the word she mouths to herself as she looks up from her book—for
that word, as she repeats it,
repeats it.
