You bend your tongue to
Ill-formed foreign words,
(Or so you thought them,
Until you came to see their beauty).
Stumbling over diphthongs,
The ‘silent’s and the ‘stressed’s,
Resort to native curses when
It’s all become too much.
But you return to it, time after time;
The nonsensical grammar and the
Accent you can’t quite grasp.
Eventually you come to find that,
That second language is like —
How you say it?
A lover.
At first, regarded with suspicion,
Held at a safe distance.
Throughout your relationship,
It shows itself to be
Betimes rewarding, others, petty.
But once you grasp it, hold it close,
You never forget how it feels
Dancing across your tongue.