Teresa Megahan

Silent Listening

my daddy dreams in Spanish;
my ma in Portuguese.
when their tongues first met
that night, they didn’t speak.

she’s lovesick for her homeland;
he’s calmer when he roams
the hills of Spain at night,
trailing his fingers through the vineyards,
eating grapes all-dripping dew,
lingual as pearls of water in her
lashes, catching sunlight
when she blinks
and turns back from the window.

days are silent listening
to abuelitas bridal clock
two-step ticking
(every moment is counted twice).
ma swipes a thousand circles
on a single red-orange orb day-
dreaming rocky shorelines,
ripened wheat in open fields.
she doesn’t see the clotheslines.

then it shatters.

he bursts across the threshold,
sickles us into his arms
and plants his kisses,
carries her away
(crunching-glass under his foot).

they meet in labile darkness
beyond the borders of their love
filling nights with muffled phonemes,
drifting sighs, and feathered coos
that sift me down to slumber
where I dream, in loving language,
not his, not hers, but ours.

Teresa Megahan is a Biology teacher in a small Texas town, and if that weren’t enough of a death wish, she writes poetry, short stories, and screenplays which pile up and flutter.