I fear the words my mother has trouble spelling;
using t-h-e-i-r when she really means t-h-e-r-e
or your when she means you’re. I see her
in the study sounding out a word, typing
then retyping but never able to make the red
underline disappear. I’m ten and she calls me
to check her spelling—How do you spell appreciate?
She pronounces the word, ah-pre-key-ate.
I correct her, but my mouth carries the hesitation
of her tongue, of her fragmented education, the belief
that intelligence is hereditary. Before bed I repeated
letter and leather to teach my tongue the difference.
I practiced writing verses of the bible to teach
myself the difference between myself versus her.
Amanda Galvan Huynh has received scholarships and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Sundress Academy for the Arts, NY Summer Writers Institute, and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Her poems can be read in RHINO Poetry, The Southampton Review, and Tahoma Literary Review.
