Emma Ginader

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

To be in pleasure,
no grammatical mood exists
or else I would reside
in its sounds,
raise my arm along its syntax,
relax when its periods ask,
sink into its existence.
 
Speak enough,
my brain re-wired to enjoy
books plunged in tub water,
2 p.m. breakfasts on overslept days,
hours scavenging for a passage read months ago,
trips to my childhood home,
where history yanks
me back.
 
There, I fear
the commissive,
becoming both
its subject and object:
 
myself stretched
a long, gray road
I drive
again,
 
again.