My father speaks English
with “peros” and “itos” his pointer
fingers cross one
on top
of the other
to push away mal de ojo
his right hand quickly
does the sign of the Cross
all for good measure
He is a master in lip-pointing
his mouth puckers
then turns towards an object or
person no need for translation
I tell him he is a polyglot his body
speaks where words fail
people comment on his accent
they mispronounce his name
he laughs heartily and without shame
most people call him ex-
savior
as if he had fallen from grace and could not be
redeemed shah vee air he says
over and over it’s Basque
but they forget after the first time
think Basque is a famous painter
so at the coffee shop I write his name
–XAVIER–
on every cup I make
Leonora Simonovis is a bilingual poet, mother, and educator who grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and currently lives in San Diego, CA, where she teaches Latin American and Caribbean literature, as well as creative writing (in Spanish) at the University of San Diego. She is also a contributing editor for Drizzle Review and an MFA candidate in Poetry at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Kenyon Review blog, Storyscape, Tifetet Journal, The Acentos Review, the American Journal of Poetry, and The Rumpus, among others. Her chapbook manuscript, “Waiting for a Ripe Mango,” was a finalist in the Tupelo Press Snowbound Chapbook contest.