As a child

because my voice was not the right voice

and could not be understood I stood

before the mirror — a murky glassen word

this mouth can’t shape right to this day — and was made

to watch my teeth and lips being imprecise.

So this is why I come across a Southron

and not from Yorkshire, or Sri Lankan; but I’ll complain

no more about this clarified and potent tongue

for when the moustached gent at US Customs

asked me in his hapless twang

are you a terrorist, my borrowed posh it sure

abashed that poor colonial; and it was of course

what my child-face perceived or could not in the glass

which made of me a scrutineer of sound,

a listener for and into every glitch

in the aathma, the script, the avid void of English.