Here on the porch, I let the black
cat rub its soft body on my leg
while I measured distance
of infinite time, measured in second
language. My first language
is my second language:
the census form told me my mother
tongue was an adopted child
and my mother had a tongue
that spoke the first language
where a second is measured in 秒.
The black cat taught me how to measure
bad luck: how I was born second
class citizen in the womb I chose
not to be born into. A second is also an act
of resistance when I tell my grandmother
my gut carries full of unborn jasmine
rice. The dark soy sauce and vinegar coats
the cooked pork accenting my tongue
when I praise her cooking
in the first language with my second
language accent. My grandmother speaks
a smile. But silence is also a language
of disappointment: the time my neighbours
asked me where are you from
is all the time, but every time,
it always feels like my first
language: lost. I hope
my grandmother appreciates how
immeasurable I love her
cooking. Which is why I measure the infinite
with my fingers. I measure
not the length of an irrational
number rounded
into a noose but how infinity can be
a small seedling in my finger—
幼苗 in my mother’s tongue.
But with a second language,
I am born with an ear
that cannot distinguish
秒 from 苗—
I hear only the black cat crying.
—
Miguel Barretto García’s poems have appeared or have been accepted in Rattle, Palette, wildness, RHINO, Magma Poetry, among others. They hold a PhD in decision neuroscience at the University of Zurich and is currently a reader for Adroit. They currently live between Zurich and London.