Ambitious Apron:
Mother is a Closet Polyglot
We had no idea.
She hid behind the safe places.
She put on the disguise
and portrayed the staid
design of predictable
colors and patterns.
The choice of red, maybe,
Was evidence of bold.
Now we know.
Mother is a polyglot.
She speaks Cinderella and Spanish,
French and Esperanto.
She is fluent in Sleeping Beauty
And in Aramaic.
She can read musical notation
As well as slang,
And her calligraphy is meticulous
Through Mandarin, cuneiform, and hieroglyph.
Scherezade comes to her in THE original language.
She listens to the news in vernacular
and hears it with her heart.
She speaks indigenous
as well as ingenious.
She speaks in tongues.
Mother reads the news in
all the many codes of despair,
Yet she can tell you the etymology
of marmalade as she ladles it hot into jars.
Mother can sing sweet ditties
In baby babble,
And unravel the tangled
Threads of Babel.
Mother is a closet polyglot.
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