The Affair of The Foreign Tongue
We thumbed pages by candlelight,
muttered weak attempts at words,
assumed dramatis personae
as tragic players stroking skin like a prop,
fingers lingering at sides.
I wish I remembered names of the German poets:
spirits that escaped
through us, our bodies, vocal cords.
Our mouths made noises like grunts of delight,
faulty syllables, mispronunciations.
We needed no translation,
lines seducing though they could’ve been
uncompromising notes on the glory of war.
Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes, watches Criterion films, and tries to stay out of trouble. His forthcoming books include poetry collections, My Pandemic / Gratitude List from Mōtus Audāx Press and Tell Us How to Live from Fernwood Press, and his first short-story collection, Always One Mistake, from Running Wild Press.
