English as a Second Language

Perry S. Nicholas 

from Words & Music

I love listening to the comforting cadence,  

pulsing conversation of the Russian family  

next door when they entertain friends,  

let fly their clustered consonants. 

Chatter too limited a description for the stresses  

I am hearing, so I stop trying to name it,  

allow my mind to drift back, nights  

when I would lie in my childhood room,  

cover myself with a blanket of Greek rhythms,  

parents and their friends and cousins squeaking  

on plastic-covered sofas in the living room,  

exchanging perfect tenses, guttural vowels,  

staccato stories and laughter. I never minded  

when they kept me awake, drowned out 

the barking American voices on TV. 

I winced when they switched to English.  

I can’t hear my parents’ voices anymore,  

hardly ever use my second language,  

so I console myself by eavesdropping  

on the Russian neighbors. It’s not their story  

I am stealing, but the warm blanket of r’s  

rolling off their soothing tongues. 

Image © Europeana

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Perry S. Nicholas is a professor emeritus of English at SUNY at ERIE in Buffalo, N.Y. He has published one textbook of poetry prompts, three full-length and eight chapbooks of original poetry, along with two CDs of poetry. He has hosted 6 poetry venues over the years in the WNY area and read his work in Woodstock, Kingston, Albany, NYC, Plymouth MA, and Athens, Greece. He has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Award. 

perrynicholas.com