A Different Tongue

You say your parents’ house is golubói,
but all I see are azure bungalows.
When you write to me about toská, I know
that all I feel is yearning. When with joy
I speak to you, and rádost’ moves my tongue,
Saxon pebbles fill my mouth, and Normans
steal your words and conquer every sense.
I am too old, even though I am young,
to grow a different tongue. Still, we speak,
and when you talk I follow the music in it.
I’ve learned to hum along, and Chekhov’s wit
or Pushkin’s wonderment will sometimes peek
through fumbled fields of Russian consonants —
and then, we smile, in native innocence.