Mantis 19 (Spring 2021)
Multilingualism
Valerie Wong
true patriot love
the kind that’s fed to you on a silver spoon
makes me quickly disassociate myself from
bieber apologize when someone steps on my
foot crave poutine on blustery days
retreat from conflict like a peacekeeper yet
refuse to settle for maple syrup from vermont
defiantly spell my words with the rightful “u”
go all metric on people because i can
but when they ask me “aboot”
things like seaton village
i falter
finally got around to reading camus
three years too late so my french had rusted over
till you could hardly see the iron roots underneath
but even through the sting of saltwater
it was exactly what i needed after
a whole day of crunching numbers
till my teeth were rattling in the cage of my mouth
rubbed raw and bleeding
accounting is so abrasive
i’d been away from the sea far too long
so delving into my liquid crystal screen that night was like
slipping into a cool mediterranean evening
all i wanted to do was dive in and drink, and drink, and
drink
Imposter
For all her fluency, there’s something off about her.
She looks the part, acts the part, speaks the part.
Her voice glides across mazes of consonants and
vowels
--some would call it betrayal--but she has her tells.
The Britishisms that slip out in the spur of the moment,
the hybrid chameleon accent that brings with it the world,
her subtle foreignness.
Her eyes glide furiously, deliberately slippery,
unaccustomed to the incessant loudness of this
country, the tedium of endless “how are yous” and
“thanks yous” spoken with the sincerity of an
answering machine.
And so she drifts through the gilded doors of the City,
afraid she’ll be caught out for the imposter she is.
VALERIE WONG (AKA @theglutenfreepoet) was born in Toronto, grew up in Hong Kong and is currently working as a management consultant in New York. As a Third Culture Kid (TCK), she is at once a local and a foreigner wherever she goes.