Spanish



I wanted for my child to be bilingual,
to blaspheme in multiple mother tongues.

He has mastered Spanish ahead of me,
and written a letter home from a strange language,
a land that he has explored, perhaps mastered.
While I sat home, worrying, the mothers of eons of adventurers
joined me in spirit.

Electrons, to the envy of Penelope, delivered his letter to me.
Read to us, the ancient mothers said,
in the voice of each of their Spanish sons.
But letters are less formal today. He simply wrote:

Spanish is a funny language
where the ropa's not rope
and the sopa's not soap
and the butter
is meant to kill you.
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Submitted on May 02, 2011

Modified on March 10, 2023

34 sec read
5

Quick analysis:

Scheme XX ABXXX AXXX BCCXX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 596
Words 112
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 2, 5, 4, 5

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    Translation

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    • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
    • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
    • Español (Spanish)
    • Esperanto (Esperanto)
    • 日本語 (Japanese)
    • Português (Portuguese)
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    • العربية (Arabic)
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    • Čeština (Czech)
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    "Spanish" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/84814/spanish>.

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