TRANSLATION
I take my grandmother to the doctor each weekend.
My Vietnamese is fair enough, the basics at least;
I have to get creative with “hematocrit” and “uterus.”
The doctor, pale blue scrubs and a half-smile,
always addresses my grandmother by her first name
though he is 30 years her junior. He briskly nods his head
as I explain, the best I can, each phrase he assigns.
Sometimes he stops me short: Just translate my words.
Don’t add personal interpretations. Just say what I say.
Appointment over, I take the keys and drive us
home through the usual stretch of street signs.
What’s that one, my grandmother asks mile after mile
and, like some proud traffic-law expert, I say:
“Stop,” “Yield,” “Caution speed bump,” “Exit ahead.”
But the truth is I have no idea whether my words
connect, if my translations are knowledge or nonsense.
This language engulfs us in separate oceans,
longer and louder than anything I know how to name.
from Breaking the Map (Blue Begonia Press, 2009)
originally published in CALYX
