Bilingüe/Bilingual
The cars zoom
zoom
zoom
past the dentist’s office
window in a rush
of Dominican traffic.
“Otro carro!” she says
in the giddiness that accompanies
toddler recognition.
Except her ca–rro
sounds more like ca–row.
No sign of the r’s on the tongue
that embraces Español. The kind
of letter that should rooooll
like all those squealing tires
going round
and round
and round outside.
“Mi vida, it’s ca–rrrrro,”
but again she says “Ca–row.”
Does it take a culture
to learn a language? To truly know it
by heart? How do I submerge
her in a country she’ll never call home?
Still, I insist—
because one day she will thank me
for not letting her r’s die.
She will say, “Ca-rrrrro,”
with enough fuerza to jumpstart
a dead engine.
Her tongue will twist and turn
in ways those of her monolingual
peers never will. And, yes,
her heart will feel divided. Two sides
threatening to pit themselves, one
against the other.
Soon enough she will learn
she doesn’t have to choose.
Her tongue will tell her mind
to tell her heart (in English and Español):
Car y carro.
And one day she will thank me:
“Grrrraaaciaaaas.”
About the Author
Rosa Gilbert is a publishing assistant at Calla Press Publishing LLC. Born and raised in the Dominican Republic, Spanish is her first language, but it was through learning English that she fell in love with words. Her work has been published at Ekstasis, Clayjar Review, and Prosetrics Literary Magazine, among others. She lives in Ohio with her husband and daughter. You can find her writing at https://rosagilbert.
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