i’m sitting on my mama’s bed
and she’s on the brink of a mental breakdown
over her homework
i can see the glint of a blinking cursor 
tears glossing over her eyes
as her hands search for words in a language
all too foreign to her.

she said i could count in both spanish and english 
by the time i was 18 months old
but it's taken her 21 years and counting to flatten out
the unruly kinks of her language

my mama’s English
is a stubborn wine stain on a white dress
she scrubs at her twisted tongue desperate
to clean the spice, el cilantro, la salsa
that is her accent. 
her accent is the tambourine she hides
in the back of her mouth
behind the ivory piano keys that are her teeth
she speaks a merengue, bachata, ranchera, tonada
that she mutes to make room 
for her English.

my mama’s English 
gets told it's pretty good, 
for being an immigrant
to which she replies
you’ve got some nerve
for being a gringa
because my mama wasn’t a stay-at-home mom
for fifteen years to be told that her English
needed housekeeping. 
the beauty of my mama’s English
is that she doesn’t need it 
to knock your head off your shoulders
call her a luchador
cuz she can make you tap out faster
than you can say
her English isn’t good enough.

my mama’s English
is me correcting her at the dinner table
it’s me laughing when she can’t find
the right syllables and sounds
and the words don’t fit quite right
in her mouth.
it’s the downturn of her lips
at the expense of my smile
because her English is not 
the punchline of a joke 
that’s gotten too old.

my mama’s English
is the piñata she got me on my 10th birthday
big and bright and pink and purple
but hollow on the inside
it’s her count to three
uno, dos, tres
as she spun me blindfolded
dizzy and facing the wrong direction
it’s the swing and miss of my bat
and the candy and confetti that falls
in the final hit that breaks it open.
it’s a game of pin the tail on the donkey
no matter how many times you play
you never just get it quite right.
it’s the quinceñera I never had
overrated and stereotypical
distastefully too latina
it’s the number birthday candles
that melt hot wax onto the cake 
she made from scratch
it’s the reason my birthday is not just
a happy birthday but a feliz cumpleaños
it’s the reason that when i go to my friend’s parties
i want to sing happy birthday twice
because mama never let us blow out candles
before singing en Español.

my mama’s English
is the one dollar and 35 cent Cuban coffee
i drive her to get every saturday 
itching at the back of her throat
bitter and hard to swallow
only sweet from the sugar left 
in the foam she licks off her top lip
it’s the reason she insists 
the starbucks double espresso
doesn’t have the same kick.

it’s the reason i’m sitting on mama’s bed
watching her eyes swell as she fumbles with the keys
it’s the reason she got into graduate school at 42
why i help her with her homework before i do my own
it’s why the bottom of her computer burns my lap
with each oxford comma and restructured sentence
and fixed grammar rule

it’s why she doesn’t end up crying
when i whisper that everything will be ok

my mama’s English
is the reason i can tell her in two ways
that she is my everything, mi todo
because her love knows
no language.