Mother Tongue

Laura Forsey

We don’t speak Gaelic here anymore.
I think it died
with my grandfather’s grandmother-
But who thinks to record an absence?

No one presses lost words into the crust of a pie
to feed hungry children who say “thank you” in Canadian English,
or braids the coastline of the Hebrides
into their daughters’ hair.

I dream of my twice-great grandmother
words fall from her lips
to land on a dusty floor
her eyes are cool and deep as the sea
before she turns and walks away.