When you asked me who I am – Ima or Mummy?
Ima dripped between your lips
rolling in it the salty taste of the sea
and the smells of citrus fruits at the beginning of winter
like the sweet drop of milk
that my tongue was forcefully cut from
Mummy carried an arrow of love
from your tongue to my belly
an estranging mix of
trembling panic and honey
like a chill of excitement when I lost my way
alone in a foreign city
But when you asked who I am, Ima or mummy
a dry landscape of in between tongues stretched for a moment before us
as a promise for things yet unsaid in any language
and for a flickering time, I could imagine
walking together on the outer rim of
a new scenery of translation
hand in hand in an other mother tongue
two last beads in a broken chain.